Whitby town

Although this feels like writing a travelogue I promise it is largely my observations. Whitby is surprisingly small with a population just over 13 thousand. This must be getting on for doubled by visitors. Tourism is the main business and one which we hope to benefit from by letting our flat in the future. Daughter-in-law Lindsay, who feels their existing holiday let is successful, is keen to manage it for us.

Bisected by the river Esk the land rises steeply away from the river. The river is tidal and there is some fishing activity and one surviving boat builder. Although this looks fairly sophisticated with floating dock and covered construction yard I would think they are building quite small vessels, hundreds rather than thousands of tons. Most of the river activity is recreational. There is no marina as such but I would guess several hundred small vessels moored at various parts.

The river is crossed in town by a swing bridge and roughly half of the town is on either side. It is rather a strange mixture. There is a very small ( thankfully ) area devoted to slot machines and arcades but much of the towns many shops are individual with few of the national chains.

Particularly on the south side many of these shops are selling jewellery made from jet, a hard black mineral which polishes well. Jet is found on the beach locally and is subject of much secrecy on good locations. Some of the shops are quirky capitalising on the town’s connection with Dracula.( the novel by Bram Stoker )

One feature is the many small cafes and plenty of fish and chip shops. As this is my favourite meal I’m well pleased..

The main local son is James Cook who is coupled in the museum with the name of William Scoresby another seafarer who I had never heard of before. The rather nice museum north of the river devotes quite a bit of space to these two. Generally the north is the rather more genteel side with many fine Georgian and Victorian houses while the south tends more to smaller terraced housing.

Parking is a major issue. While I was working on Teeside thirty years ago I remember visiting, drove around, couldn’t find anywhere to park, and on a wet day, left. Particularly in the centre streets are narrow

At low tide Whitby has a large beach on the north side which is completely covered when the tide is in. The beach is backed by a very steep banks so that the promenade is at least a hundred feet above beach level.. On its landward side are some fine large houses some arranged in a crescent. At the end of the promenade are whale bones in an arch plus a large statue of James Cook. When I was in Sydney last year I went aboard a replica of Endeavour, Cooks ship. I was surprised how small and cramped it was. Some areas below decks were less than five feet tall.

There hasn’t been much modern development in Whitby. All modern housing has to be built on the moors side of the town. The national park extends to the town boundary and planning constraints are severe.

The big local news is a large new potash mine planned south of Whitby. There is already some potash mining but this new mine has much increased land values in the area inland of Robin Hood’s Bay. This is to my son’s disgust as he originally planned to buy a goodish area of land which has increased in value by nearly a quarter of a million pounds. He narrowly missed it. The increase is such that land now tends to be sold without mineral rights.

The moors inland from Whitby are spectacular with some vast areas of heather covered land. Amid this is a strange pyramid structure which is the ballistic missile early warning radar at Fylingdales. I well remember the furore aroused when it was first installed in the early sixties. Back then the radars were in three giant spheres. There was a lot of comment about the four minute warning. However it was all part of the deterrent system which kept the peace. One has to be fearful now with Putin ever more threatening and a dangerous Donald Trump as serious American presidential candidate. The only consolation is that Ronald Reagan sounded belligerent but actually oversaw the end of the Cold War. I’m afraid Trump is far worse with a slippery grasp of reality.

Generally Whitby is surprisingly good on transport links for somewhere many miles from anywhere of note. There is a rail terminus with its main claim to fame that it is shared between national railways and the North York Moors Railway. This latter is a heritage railway which runs south to Pickering. The NYMR has some fine loco’s including the famous A4 “Sir Nigel Gresley”. Both Martin and Alex are volunteers on the railway which runs for some twenty miles across the moors. Every NYMR hold a “1940’s” weekend. We went last year and hope to again this.