Staithes History for Beginners (Art and Heritage weekend countdown)
If you’re new to Staithes, it can sometimes feel as though every cobbled street, old building, brick and bend in the Beck has a story to tell. And, frankly, it does!
Staithes has a remarkably rich history for such a small village. For centuries, its people made their living from the sea, the cliffs and the land around them. Fishermen ventured out into the North Sea, miners worked the cliffs for alum, jet and ironstone, artists arrived with their easels, and generations of local women kept families, businesses and communities going through some extraordinarily tough times.
Then there are the stories that make Staithes distinctly Staithes: Captain Cook's brief time here, the railway that opened the village to the outside world, the chapels and passionate nonconformist traditions, local crafts and dialect, family histories, folklore and all the wonderfully strange customs that have been passed down through the generations.
We originally created this series for Facebook as a countdown to the Staithes Festival of Arts & Heritage, held on 12th and 13th September. Eight short introductions to some of the people, places, industries and traditions that have shaped our village.
A facebook feed isn't necessarily forever, so we've gathered the whole series here, where they can hopefully be discovered by future visitors, local residents, family historians and anyone who has ever wondered, “What on earth happened here?”
From fishing and mining to artists, Captain Cook, the railway, religion, the remarkable women of old Staithes and finally the museum itself, this is by no means the complete story. Think of it instead as your starting point — a little introduction to Old Steease and an invitation to go looking for the stories hidden all around you.
And if these whet your appetite, come and visit us at Staithes Museum, where there is considerably more to discover.
Happy exploring! 🎣⚓🎨
1. Fishing
In the early 1800s, this tiny, cliff-clinging village was actually the largest fishing station along the English coast north of the Wash. Hundreds of men and boys were employed at sea, braving the freezing, unpredictable waters of the North Sea in a relentless struggle with the elements.
The Staithes fleet was dominated by two types of traditional wooden vessels:
⛵The Five-Man Boat (or Staithes Yawl): These massive, deep-sea vessels of up to 60 tons were the powerhouse of the local industry. In the spring, they set sail on Monday mornings and returned on Fridays. They acted as "mother ships," carrying two smaller cobles—affectionately known as "Calves"—on their decks to do the actual fishing.
🛶The Staithes Coble: A double-keeled, flat-bottomed boat with a high pointed bow, specifically designed to launch and land stern-first on Staithes' shallow, rocky beaches and withstand the rough coastal surf.
The fishing year was defined by the relentless cycle of the seasons. From late winter to summer, the men concentrated on long-lining for cod, haddock, turbot, and giant halibut. They sailed 70 miles offshore to the shallow Dogger Bank, shooting lines up to 1,200 feet long that carried hundreds of hooks. By August, the fleet re-rigged for the herring season, following migrating shoals down the coast from Aberdeen to Great Yarmouth, while inshore, they set hand-crafted hazel and twine pots to trap crabs and lobsters.
At sea, the fishermen faced grueling physical conditions. They kept warm in hand-knit, deep-blue wool jerseys that they proudly called "smock jackets" (never "ganseys" in Staithes!). These garments were so personal that families knit initials in red wool into the welts to identify the wearers in case of disaster.
This dangerous life bred a deeply superstitious community with strict taboos:
🐖The P-I-G Taboo: You must never utter the word "pig" near the boats, lines, or even in the village. To avoid terrible bad luck or disaster, the animal was referred to as "Grecian", "four-legged creature", or "grunter".
🌬️Whistling & Friday Launches: Whistling at sea was banned because it was believed to "fetch up" a dangerous storm, and no skipper would dare launch a boat or start a new venture on a Friday.
Mining
While Staithes is famous for its fishermen, for centuries it was also defined by a succession of three massive, rugged mining industries: Alum, Jet, and Ironstone.
It all started back in the 1600s with Alum—the first chemical industry in the country. Alum was a precious mineral used as a "fixing agent" for dyes, and the towering cliffs at Boulby, Kettleness, and Sandsend still look like giant bites have been taken out of them because of these old workings.
Quarrying the cliff tops was hot, dangerous work. Men baked the crumbly shale in massive, smoky heaps that burned for up to a year. To extract the crystals, they steeped the shale and boiled it with a very unusual secret ingredient: stale urine! In Whitby and across the country, large casks stood in the streets to collect it. The final trick to knowing exactly when the alum was ready to crystallise? Floating a fresh egg in the boiling liquor!
By the 1840s, a new craze hit the coast: Jet mining. Jet is a beautiful "black amber," formed from waterlogged monkey puzzle trees compressed under the sea bed 200 million years ago. When Queen Victoria went into lifelong mourning for Prince Albert, black jet jewellery became the ultimate fashion must-have. To harvest it, "jetticks" (jet miners) performed highly dangerous "dressing"—they were lowered over the sheer 200-foot cliff edges on nothing but a rope to hack out the seams of jet.
Then came the Ironstone Boom of the 1850s, which transformed Staithes into a bustling industrial hub. The legendary industrialist Charles Mark Palmer took over the local mines and built Port Mulgrave. For decades, ships loaded up with Staithes ironstone and sailed to Jarrow-on-Tyne, where the ore was smelted to build the Royal Navy's very first iron-armoured battleships! Miners walked home from the drifts looking like "yellow men"—covered from head to foot in a thick, ochre-like ironstone dust.
The mining tradition lives on today at Boulby Mine, which is the deepest mine in Great Britain and western Europe - they mine rock salt and Polysulphate, which is used for fertilizer. Chris Toph is going to give a talk during the festival about the dark matter laboratory at the mine, which you can book on the festival website.
Staithes Artists and Craftspeople
Today, we are stepping into a beautiful world where paintbrushes, hand-carved wood, and woolen needles tell the story of Staithes: Part 3: Artists & Craftsmen. 🎨👩🎨⚓
At the turn of the 20th century, between 1894 and 1909, our tiny coastal outpost became home to a legendary colony of painters known as the Staithes Group of Artists. The catalyst was the opening of the railway in December 1883, which made this cliff-clinging village suddenly accessible to artists from industrial towns who were eager to capture unspoilt, "plein air" (outdoor) scenes of working-class life.
Artists like Mark Senior, Fred Jackson, Robert Jobling, and the famous Dame Laura Knight (then Laura Johnson) fell head over heels for the village. Laura and her husband Harold slept above the post office and took over a converted beachfront stable and loft by the Beckmouth as their studio.The local fishermen and children made perfect, natural models, earning a welcome fee of about threepence a time.
The villagers warmly accepted this creative invasion—but they drew a strict line at the Sabbath! Painting on Sundays was considered strictly "taboo". One summer, an artist dared to set up his easel on a Sunday, only for the local fishermen to pelt him with fish heads until he packed up! In 1901, they formed the Staithes Art Club, holding their very first exhibition right inside the village's Fishermen’s Institute.
But the artists weren't the only ones creating masterpieces in the village. The "Steeas" people themselves possessed an incredible array of traditional, hard-won heritage skills:
🧶 The Staithes Smock Jacket: Staithes fishermen wore beautiful, hand-knit deep-blue woolen jerseys. But in Staithes, they were proudly called "smock jackets"—never "ganseys"! Women hand-knitted them on needles using highly personal, intricate stitch patterns. Poignantly, wives and mothers embroidered the fisherman's initials in red wool into the welt or neck. This served a heartbreaking purpose: if a vessel was lost, it was often the only way to identify a loved one's body reclaimed by the sea.
🛖 Traditional Lobster Pots: Handcrafted pot-making was passed down through generations. Young apprentices like John Cole watched their elders gather hazel sticks (known locally as "ezzles") from the nearby woods. They pulled these hazels into shape using a heavy, traditional curved template called a "pot bower" to craft the perfect curved frame.
🔨 Shipbuilding & Boatbuilding: Staithes was historically a small but busy shipbuilding centre. For over a century, the Roddham family ran a bustling yard on what is now Chapel Yard (later taken over by the Co-op in 1906). Shipwrights worked with traditional hand tools like the adze to shape massive timbers brought into the harbour as rafts.
🧹 Donkey-Stoning Doorsteps: Staithes women took fierce domestic pride in keeping their doorsteps beautifully scrubbed and sanded in a ritual called "donkey-stoning". Two local ladies, Mrs. Tose and Mrs. Rowbottom, had a monopoly on the trade, walking a mile and a half carrying heavy blocks of yellow sandstone on their heads straight from the local quarries to sell them for a halfpenny each!
Captain Cook
Today, we are setting sail with one of the most famous names in maritime history: Captain Cook. 🧭🗺️
Before James Cook became a legendary navigator, he was just a farm labourer's son born in Marton in 1728. With some help from the local landlord, a 16-year-old Cook arrived in Staithes in 1745 to work as a shop boy for the local grocer and haberdasher, William Sanderson.
Staithes was a total eye-opener for the young inland lad. It was a noisy, exciting, close-knit community packed with sailors, smugglers, and shipwrights. Cook spent his rare leisure hours making short excursions in traditional wooden cobles with local fishermen, gaining his very first instincts for the sea.
But his time in Staithes was cut short by a highly unusual incident. One day in the shop, Cook became enamoured with a beautiful, shiny new shilling in the till, minted by the South Sea Company. He took the coin and replaced it with a normal shilling of his own. When Sanderson missed the South Sea shilling, he accused Cook of stealing. Cook indignantly explained what he had done and returned it. Although the matter was resolved amicably, the accusation completely dampened Cook's enthusiasm for shopkeeping. He left Staithes and headed to Whitby, where he took a formal apprenticeship under the Quaker shipowner John Walker, sailing the North Sea on the grimy collier brig Freelove.
If you visit Staithes today, you can still see Captain Cook's Cottage on Church Street. The original shop where he worked along the harbour garth was eventually washed away by the relentless sea. However, before it collapsed, the stones, woodwork, and the very door with its iron knocker were carefully salvaged and used to build the cottage you see today.
Come and walk the same cobbled streets that inspired a young James Cook at the Staithes Festival of Arts and Heritage! 🎨 📅
Railway
Today, we hear the thunder of the tracks and explore the legendary "bonniest line in England":🚂⛰️
For centuries, Staithes was deeply isolated by land, accessible only by steep, muddy tracks and horse-drawn carrier wagons. But all of that changed in December 1883 when the spectacular Whitby, Redcar and Middlesbrough Union Railway finally reached the village.
It was a true masterpiece of Victorian engineering. The single-track line clung to the high cliffs, dived through tunnels, and soared over the breathtaking Staithes Viaduct. Designed by civil engineer John Dixon, this monumental iron bridge stood 152 feet high and stretched 700 feet long, spanning the deep canyon of the Staithes Beck.
But crossing the viaduct was not for the faint-hearted! Following the tragic Tay Bridge disaster of 1879, safety regulations were tightened across Britain. The Staithes Viaduct was fitted with a unique wind gauge connected to a bell in the signal box. If the North Sea gales reached a pressure of 28 lbs per square foot, the bell rang, and all train traffic was stopped!
This setup led to one of the village's most famous railway legends. One incredibly windy day, a train driver rang the signalman from nearby Grinkle to ask if the wind bell was ringing. When the signalman replied "no", the driver decided to "take a chance". He drove his train so fast over the high viaduct to beat the gale that he couldn't stop! He completely overshot Staithes Station and had to reverse a very long way back - some very shaky-legged passengers climbed out onto the platform!
The railway completely transformed Staithes. Suddenly, fresh fish landed in the morning could be marketed on the very same day in Leeds, Manchester, and London. It also brought the first tourists—including the famous Staithes Group of Artists! When painter Dame Laura Knight first stepped onto the Staithes platform in 1896, she recalled how the powerful coastal wind instantly blew their skirts over their heads and sent their hats flying!
Later, starting in 1932, the railway even set up a camping coach on a siding at the station, offering holidaymakers six berths with oil-fired heating for £6 a week.
Sadly, the line was closed and the iconic viaduct was demolished in April 1960. But you can still see the old station buildings (now a private home) at the back of the bank-top car park, and the old Station Hotel is now the Captain Cook's Inn!
Come and wander the historic streets that the railway opened up to the world at the Staithes Festival of Arts and Heritage! 🎨 📅
Methodism
Today, we look at the powerful, dramatic, and occasionally combative history of Staithes' spiritual life. ⛪🌊
For centuries, Staithes was geographically isolated and deeply neglected by the established Church of England. This neglect left a vast spiritual gap in the lower village, creating a fertile seedbed for passionate, independent, and rebellious nonconformist faiths to take root.
The first major spiritual wave arrived in the freezing winter of 1651, when the legendary founder of the Quakers, George Fox, travelled through deep snow to Staithes. He held massive meetings, famously confronting the local "high priest" who oppressed the poor fishermen by demanding a hefty tithe on fish—even if they caught it 100 miles away and sold it in Great Yarmouth. Fox's fiery preaching converted several locals, including a local priest named Philip Scafe.
However, Fox's visit sparked a fierce local uproar. A frustrated Scottish curate named Leven grew so enraged after a heated theological debate that he smashed his cane on the ground and threatened Fox's life on the cliffs. Yet in a beautiful twist of history, Leven's wife eventually became a Quaker, and later in life, Leven did too!
By the late 1700s, Methodism swept through the village. It soon split into two fiercely competitive factions: the Wesleyans (who leaned towards quiet respectability) and the Primitive Methodists, who were affectionately nicknamed the "Ranters" for their ecstatic, enthusiastic street-singing.
Staithes Methodists took Sabbatarianism (observing Sunday as a strict day of rest) to extraordinary lengths. No boats would put to sea on a Sunday. In the home, women refused to do any chores—even hiding unwashed dishes in the cupboard until Monday rather than washing them on the Sabbath!
The most famous village legend about this strict Sunday rule concerns a ship that wrecked on the scaurs on a Sunday, washing up a vast, valuable cargo of coal. Rather than violate the Sabbath, the strictly religious locals refused to carry the coal away. When they woke up on Monday morning, the tide had washed every single piece of coal back out to sea!
Come and wander the historic streets and explore our beautiful chapels at the Staithes Festival of Arts and Heritage!
Strong Women
We are back with Part 7 of our beginner's guide to Staithes’ remarkable history. Today, we are celebrating the true backbone, bosses, and beauties of old Steease.🧺💪
If you ever wanted proof of who really ran Staithes, look no further than the law courts, which historically recognized the community as a North Yorkshire Matriarchal Society. By long-standing local custom, hardworking husbands and fathers would walk through the door on Friday nights and place their unopened wage packets directly onto the kitchen table—and they would be in serious trouble with their wives if they dared to open them first!
The sheer grit of these women was legendary, with historical writers remarking that they worked harder than anyone in the world. On freezing winter mornings, they would turn out in all weathers to wade waist-deep into the icy North Sea surf to help launch and haul back the heavy wooden cobles. This work was incredibly dangerous; some families tragically lost mothers to the sea during these launches, such as Mary Cole, the great-grandmother of a modern lifeboat crew member, who was hit on the head and killed while launching a boat.
Once the men were safely at sea, the women's next grueling shift began. They would walk miles along the rocky coast to Saltburn, Redcar, Ravenscar, or Peak to gather "flithers" (limpets) from the rock pools. They carried these massive loads—sometimes weighing up to a hundredweight (112 lbs)—all the way back to the village on their heads.
To protect themselves during this brutal work, they wore the iconic Staithes Bonnet. Its beautifully frilled edges were designed with a practical purpose: to shield their faces from the elements and keep flying fish scales from sticking to their hair. The crowns of the bonnets were stuffed with old socks to cushion the heavy bait baskets. Even their bonnets communicated a message; while white was for everyday work, a widow wore a solid black bonnet for her first year of mourning, transitioning gradually to lilac or mauve thereafter.
This tough coastal life bred some incredibly fierce characters:
Sally Hicks: A legendary local fish buyer who was as strong as any man. She drove her horse cart at a furious pace over the Cowbar cobbles, standing straddle-legged. One dark night, when men jumped her cart to steal her money, Sally lashed out with her lethally sharp skeining knife. The thieves fled, and the next morning Sally was surprised to find four severed fingers left behind in her cart!
The Clever Smuggler: When the Press Gang or Customs Officers raided local homes, they once admitted themselves to a cottage only to find a sweet old lady placidly knitting a "gansey" in the chimney corner. She claimed her rheumatics were so bad she couldn't possibly get up. Once the officers left empty-handed, she stood up with a smile—she had been sitting on the barrel of smuggled spirits the entire time!
Back at home, the domestic routine was equally rigorous, dictated by a strict weekly chore cycle: Monday was washday (using heavy wooden poss-tubs to scrub clothes), Tuesday was for ironing, Wednesday for baking, and so on—all culminating in keeping a beautifully "donkey-stoned" and whitened doorstep.
Come and celebrate the legacy of these extraordinary, world-shaping women at the Staithes Festival of Arts and Heritage! 🎨 📅
Staithes Museum
To wrap up our journey, we are heading to the ultimate keeper of our village's secrets: Part 8: The Staithes Museum. 🏛️⚓
Housed inside the beautiful 1880 Primitive Methodist "Ranters" Chapel, the Staithes Museum is a treasure trove of local history. It is the perfect place to discover all the fascinating, quirky, and deeply personal details of old Staithes life that we couldn't fit into our previous posts:
🗣️ The Staithes Dialect: Our local speech is heavily rooted in Old Norse, inherited directly from the Vikings. At the museum, you can learn authentic fishing terms like "skaning" (taking bait from shells), "skep" (the bait basket), or "swip" (the broken end of a fishing line). Our fishing tools downstairs are labelled in dialect to give you a taste of what the village sounded like in the past.
🌳 Family Trees and photos: Think your family history is complicated? The Staithes Family History Group has spent years untangling pedigrees that date back to the 1600s. Because the old village was so isolated, families frequently intermarried, and with identical family names repeating constantly, locals relied on a brilliant, complex system of vivid nicknames to tell everyone apart. We’ve got local names stuck onto the photos where the people can be identified, and a touchscreen full of the photos we couldn’t fit on the tables.
✨ Folklore & Superstitions: Staithes life was governed by strict, beautiful rituals. Newly-born babies were carried to the highest room of the house and lifted to the ceiling for luck. At weddings, the bride would walk to the chapel with a golden sovereign in each shoe, children scrambled for "hot money" thrown in the streets, and the bride threw a plate over her head—believing it was terrible luck if it didn't smash. And on Christmas Eve, known locally as "Maundrill Neet," every household sat down to a traditional feast of roast haddock, apple pie, and frumerty (a spiced, rum-laced wheat porridge that took three days to prepare).
🎒 School Days: Step back in time with the original, handwritten log books from the old Board School, which opened at the top of the bank in December 1878. The schoolmaster's logs paint a vivid picture of Victorian childhood: children frequently skipped class to help land coal off beached cargo ships, went missing when the herring fleet came in, and were occasionally punished for highly unusual offences, like "beating pigs with ropes"!
🗺️ Global Treasures: The museum's collection extends far beyond our shores. You can view an exquisite set of 60 framed engravings by John Webber, the official artist who sailed with Captain Cook on his fateful third Pacific voyage. You can also explore the ultimate maritime puzzle—the Longitude Problem—and see how the brilliant clocks of lone genius John Harrison finally allowed sailors to navigate the globe safely.
There is so much more waiting to be discovered! Come and step back in time at the Staithes Festival of Arts and Heritage!
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