Dream Tyne – Travels Around The North East Coast (Part Two)

Ravenscar – A Brief History 1

It is the fifth century. The Roman Empire is in catastrophic decline and the last of the legions stationed at Peak Fort pack up and leave. Its primary function is as a signal station, just one of a long chain that stretches along the east coast. The cliff top site is desolate, wind ravaged, unwanted. In the next nine hundred years, the fort decays and all but disappears. The savagery of the Roman invaders is not forgotten and the space they occupied is treated with suspicion.

In the next one hundred years, a small cluster of farm and outbuildings built around the southern edge of the site expands and forms the village of Staintondale. One farmer, John Beswick, outgrows the village and in 1540 begins to build Peak Farm on the site, breaking one thousand years of suspicion.

The farm persists for 240 years or so, passing father to son until the land is bought by William Childs. Childs, a captain in the King’s Regiment of Light Dragoons, becomes the owner of the Peak Alum Works, to the north of Peak Farm. With alum being essential to the fixing of dyes, cottons mills and fabrics manufacturers provide Childs with a steady and plentiful income stream. The profits made by the works pay for the building of an extravagant family home for Childs. During the expansion of the farmhouse, a foundation stone for the Roman Fort is found in the cellar. The stone is later gifted to the Whitby Museum.

Child’s daughter, Ann, is bequeathed the house on his death in 1829, and with her husband, Dr Francis Willis, transforms the hall into a sanatorium for the rich and famous. Dukes, Earls, Barons and Baronesses from across Europe flock to Peak Hall to take in the sea air and be cured of the burdens and ailments of the Upper Classes. The Queen of Portugal spends time recuperating and King George III visits regularly to recover from his bouts of ‘madness’ – later suggested to be either bipolar disorder or porphyria, a disease of the liver that displays symptoms of confusion, fever, high blood pressure, seizures, vomiting…

The extraordinary wealth that this parade of nobility generates is thrown away by the Reverend Doctor Richard Willis, Ann’s son. Despite his titles and piety, Willis squanders the money, addicted to louse racing. This escalates to betting on horse racing – mostly at Doncaster Racecourse. The stakes are higher, the losses greater. He embarks on a set of expensive renovations that include a hanging terrace, entirely unnecessary battlements, and further expansions to the hall, adding to the ever-mounting debt. Curiously, he also builds a small ‘cave’ into the cliff wall below the hall, just the right size to allow signals to be sent either to Robin Hoods Bay, where tales of smugglers are common, or out to sea. Although there is no solid evidence that the Reverend Doctor participated in smuggling, the positioning and usefulness of the artificial cave could lead to some damning assumptions being made.

The reputation and respectability built up by William and Ann is quickly destroyed by Richard and to pay off the crippling debts he has accrued, Peak Hall is sold to William Hammond in 1845. Richard then cements his reputation as a man of ill-repute by offering quack remedies and a hypnotic cure for insomnia for one guinea at time, still trading on the reputation his mother and father has developed. Eventually, after imprisonment for fraud, he returns to the church and takes a ministry on the Isle of Sheppey.

Hammond rids Peak Hall of its bad reputation restructuring and renaming the building ‘Raven Hall.’ He expands the small village that had built up around it by building a windmill, a village church and other amenities. He was also a director of a building project tasked with creating a railway line between Scarborough and Whitby, a Ravenscar Railway station is built. As keen as he is for the railway project to succeed, he does not want the track to bisect his three hundred acres of land. Instead, he pays for a tunnel that allows the trains to pass beneath his land. Tragically, he never sees the line completed, dying three months before the end of the project. The station services the rapidly growing village for around 80 years, but not without problems. The slight incline proved problematic from the available steam trains and resulted in delays as it huffed up a slope that even the most infirm person could manage.

His daughters inherit the site after the death of their mother, but unwilling to take control of the lands, sell it to the Peak Estate Company for development.

Whitby 2

All the tables in the ‘Fish and Chip Restaurant’ were curiously small. My partner had difficult with leg room and once in could not move out without contorting his body to free his knees. The chairs, fixed to the floor along with the tables, meant that my rotund form had to be forced into the space between them. It was supremely uncomfortable; both of us wedged in, pinned down by different body aspects.

With it being off-season, we were the only people in there, but it didn’t stop us being ignored for a very long time. I was losing the ability to breathe when a chirpy waitress came to take our order. The natural, the only choice when dining in a Whitby Fish and Chips restaurant, is to opt for the Holy Trinity of cod, chips and mushy peas; tea and pappy sliced white bread and butter replace the wine and host. While we waited in the slightly dingy, seen-better-days restaurant, reeking of damp and spirit vinegar, two thoughts came to mind. The first of which ‘Why in God’s name are we here?’ was the obvious one. The second was ‘why do only half the tables have ketchup in plastic tomatoes?’ The other half had bottles of Heinz 57; the inside of the bottle painted red. There was a clear delineation, too. One side with plastic bottles, one side with painted glass.

I had seen the painted glass bottles many times before. It was a post-war sign of affluence. A full bottle, in time of rationing, indicated wealth and the ability to replenish – something that impressed a nation suffering food shortage. A visibly half empty bottle was seen as less affluent and suggested that perhaps the food you were getting was not up to standard.

Any pretence to affluence here seemed like a lost cause as the more we observed our surroundings, the more decayed they seemed. The self-adhesive plastic that lined the tabletops was peeling, revealing the previous pattern, also peeling. Beneath archaeological layers of vinyl veneer, we learned that ‘Martin ♡ Colleen’ in 1978 and that Marie, apparently, was a slut. I wondered if both were still true. Or if they had ever been true.

The meal, despite the unpromising surroundings, was a delight. The batter cracked like thin glass releasing superheated steam. Fishy phantasms. Crunch outlines fluffy potato, yielding under bare pressure of tooth. Mushy peas, thick enough to grout with, are perfect by virtue of being mushy peas – you can take the boy out of Yorkshire – The sprig of parsley seems an unnecessary titivation, and the lemon wedge a little ostentatious when there is Sarson’s Vinegar – mercifully not ‘non-brewed condiment,’ a product with almost as much allure as the ‘industrial cheese analogue’ found on pizzas – to provide the cutting tang.

After paying and exiting back into the sun – we hadn’t realised quite how dark it was in there – we blinked our sight back as we walked past a row of tat shops. Those that were open displayed a false and desperate cheeriness. A painted smile in the off-season slump.

One shop, a little more upmarket, had a small display of fossils. Most of them were the real but uninspiring thing; small and overpriced, but a stack of hand-sized ammonites in plastic boxes caught my attention. Even more expensive than the real fossils were plaster copies of ammonites. The openings of the spirals had been carved to form a crude ‘snakes head’ shape.

On the box was a small silhouette of Whitby Abbey. If I were to understand what the significance of the ammonite was, a visit to the Abbey would probably provide the answers. The shopkeeper scowled at us as, after we had thoroughly examined it, I put the ammonite back on the display and left the premises.

Robin Hood’s Bay 3

Smuggling and Robin Hoods Bay are synonymous. It operated as the northern hub for national and international intrigue and the village enjoyed a modest opulence, which wasn’t befitting its image as a poor fishing village. From the wall at the shoreline to the top of the hill, underground tunnels meant that contraband could be taken from boat to around a mile inland without ever being seen on the street. The tunnels went through the cellars of the denizen’s houses, often with the cellars used as storage space. This meant that a large portion of the residents were complicit in the smuggling operation, if not actively taking part.

The customs and excise office noted that the people of Robin Hoods Bay, then called simply “The Bay” enjoyed a lifestyle that was indicative of some unknown affluence. Suspicions were raised, but with no ‘on street’ activity, transporting illicit goods, they remained baffled.

Quite where the Robin Hood connexion came from is up for furious debate, perhaps it’s simple ‘take from the rich to give to the poor’ ethos of smugglers, although I doubt that altruism was a factor in the smuggler’s world, but liberating goods from excise duty mean that silks and snuffs were easily and cheaply available.

For those not involved or ignorant of these clandestine operations, folk tales would be created to keep people quiet, scared or mum. In The Bay, a story was circulated about ‘Old Linger’ a malevolent ghost that would scare anyone who saw him, possibly to death.

On moonless nights, Old Linger would stalk the streets of Robin Hood’s Bay, searching for a victim to drag to the netherworld. Residents were advised, implored to stay in their homes, close the curtains and ignore any noises from outside. Peeking through the curtains would attract the evil spirit and cause madness, death or a curse on the family for all time.

Moonless nights were, of course, the busiest nights for smugglers and the tunnels would have been so busy that some goods would by necessity, have to be taken by road.

What better than threat of madness or death to keep those not in the know away from the operation. What better way to curb their curiosity at the sounds of rattling carriages and screeching horses. If it wasn’t Old Linger, it may have been Old Nick, and that carriage and horses would surely drag them to hell.

Those who claimed to have seen Old Linger and survived were probably in the employ of smugglers to spread to story. Perhaps they employed someone, gaunt with white painted face to knock on windows and cement the story to the curious. Either way, the story gained traction. Similar stories of supernatural entities in smuggling towns abound.

If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet,
Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,
Them that ask no questions isn't told a lie.
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by.

Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk.
Laces for a lady; letters for a spy,
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by! 1

This section of Kipling’s poem ‘A Smugglers Song’ tells of something similar although the supernatural element is played down. Still, there is an eeriness to ‘watch the wall my darling as the gentlemen go by’ that speaks of uncanny goings on. The call to look away, not talk to the kings’ men, and receive gifts for complicity resonates with the story of Old Linger, with variations of the tale gracing most of the areas famed for smuggling, it more or less confirms a network of smuggling operations.

David Bowie 2

I own most of Bowie’s work in one format or another (often multiple formats) and was delighted that on reaching the Whitby, the Tesco superstore had a David Bowie offer on in their audio department. Two CDs for £10. Bargain! The gaps in my CD collection were filled and the rest of the holiday was fuelled, and sound tracked by Low, Earthling, Stage, The Buddha of Suburbia and Blackstar.

Whitby 3

On the Khyber Pass in Whitby, there is a seat that commemorates Bram Stoker. It is reputed that he first saw Whitby Abbey from the site of the bench and mused on how it would make a terrific setting for a novel he was composing.

I have long adored Bram Stoker’s epistolary novel ‘Dracula,’ so much so that two of the novels I have written have taken a similar form – letters, police reports, lost property receipts, newspaper articles – all in lieu of a standard three act narrative and presenting a story you need to piece together from the evidence. It is an approach that HP Lovecraft also took with his novella ‘The Call of Cthulhu,’ although I doubt it’s an homage to Stoker. Lovecraft described Stoker’s works as either ‘fair’ or ‘absolutely the most amorphous & infantile mess I’ve ever seen between cloth covers;’ adding, with reference to Stoker’s ‘The Lair of the White Worm’ that ‘in spite of a magnificent idea which one would ordinarily deem well-nigh fool-proof, Stoker was absolutely devoid of a sense of form, and could not write a coherent tale to save his life.’ (H. P. Lovecraft to Donald Wandrei, 29 Jan 1927, Mysteries of Time & Spirit 20)

As much as I am in thrall to Lovecraft’s work, I’m not certain he should be levelling accusations of incoherence without taking a long hard look at himself.

I sat in Stoker’s seat, hoping to gain some inspiration. For what, I wasn’t sure as I was taking a long, possibly terminal, break from writing novels. I stared into the blurred air as fog rendered the abbey invisible. Staring from Stoker’s seat gave me nothing approaching even a vague idea for writing a new novel or finishing the last. My muse, it seemed, was dead. I gave a sly smile to the abbey and waited for her return.

1 An aside. I wonder whether Kipling’s poem was the inspiration for the “Hush” episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer in which a group of sinister creatures called “The Gentlemen” steal peoples’ voices in order to exact their nefarious purpose. In the false – fairy tale, they are only defeated when a princess screams.