For generations of people in Staithes, Marie Lowden was simply “the Toffee Lady”: the woman on the High Street who made and sold her own crackly toffee. But behind that familiar village memory was a woman who had already lived several lives before she began selling sweets — and who, in later life, became a remarkably prolific published writer. There are some people who become part of a place so completely that their names almost become attached to the landscape. In Staithes,

Staithes Museum's replica of the Harrison Clock At Staithes Museum, we often think of Captain Cook’s voyages as the height of 18th-century maritime exploration — voyages that depended not only on courage and seamanship but also on advances in navigation. Among the most pressing questions of the age was how to find a ship’s longitude at sea — a problem so difficult it spawned a royal reward and centuries of effort. Most people have heard of John Harrison’s marine timekeepers.