As you enter the Staithes Museum, the first exhibit shows the tools of the fisherman’s trade - labelled, not in English, but in Staithes Dialect. It’s your opportunity to take a dip into the rich linguistic tapestry of our village, a local speech often considered more than just a dialect - a living language that has survived with "great tenacity". The isolation of Staithes before the arrival of the railway in 1885 allowed many ancient characteristics of its speech to persist.

From Staithes Museum Newsletter issue 6, for October 2024 One of our most intriguing artefacts has been sparking curiosity among visitors: a charming poster from the Staithes Feast of 1797. Its language, rich with old customs and local games, can be hard to decode. But thanks to a serendipitous find among photocopies of records of Hinderwell baptisms, we now understand how a Skep and Pole trial was performed over 200 years ago. “Some explanation is needed to make this task un