Sea the sights (From The Northern Echo)

Sea the sights

2:46pm Friday 19th August 2011 in Reviews

Saltburn-by-the-Sea, with its pier, promenade and water-powered cliff lift has been buzzing as the town celebrates its 150th anniversary. Karen Bowerman visited out of season and discovered space, fresh air and empty sands.

THE fish fell apart into moist, steaming flakes; the batter glistened; the chips were crisp, crunchy and lightly sprinkled with salt. But given it was traditional seaside fare, dished, without ceremony, into a polystyrene carton, what made it taste so good?

The girl, her cheeks flushed with heat, said it was the beef dripping which was “fresh” (if dripping can be fresh) every day. The glutinous oil spat and sizzled in a trough in front of her – a pool of mini geysers. We Southerners are so picky with our polyunsaturated fats. You’ll get none of that here: they fry with gusto up North.

My massive portion of cod and chips cost less than £5 and came from the hatch of The Fish Shop at Saltburn-by-the-Sea.

Once a popular Victorian resort with its pier, promenade and cliff lift, today Saltburn is largely overlooked, as holidaymakers head to Scarborough and Whitby. There are no souvenir shops, no amusement arcades and no fairgrounds, just rolling surf, fresh air and space. Visit out of season and you share the beach only with swooping gulls.

The approach road drops so unexpectedly down to the sea that I feared it was going to deposit me on the sand. The sliver of tarmac runs along the shore for a mere 300 yards before heading inland again, climbing through fields and open countryside towards Whitby. Follow it without thinking and you’ll miss Saltburn’s historic seafront altogether.

The afternoon I was there the tide was out, revealing a large stretch of damp sand, edged with shingle and crossed by a seemingly endless pier.

A woman strode past with her dogs. A surfer, back from the waves, peeled off her wetsuit. Two children in anoraks and wellies somersaulted over the railings that led to the shore.

I finished my fish and chips, grabbed a waterproof and headed along the pier towards the bleak North Sea.

THE pier, built in 1869, was the first on Cleveland’s coast.

Within six months of opening, it attracted 50,000 visitors and turned Saltburn into an upmarket Victorian resort. It proved so popular, steamers offering trips between Hartlepool and Scarborough began stopping en route, so passengers could disembark and stroll up and down over the waves.

Opposite the pier’s old ticket booths is the town’s water-powered cliff lift. At its base, two trams sit side by side, braving the drizzle as they await the new season. They’ve shunted up and down the vertical track for the past 130 years, making it one of the oldest funiculars in Britain.

From the top there are sweeping views of the coast. To the west, the sand stretches for miles. To the east, it ends abruptly at the foot of Huntcliff, a headland whose wooded coves were once a favourite haunt of smugglers.

The cliff is a dull reddish-brown, stained with iron ore. But at dusk it appears almost luminescent, streaked with claret and gold.

At its base huddles a row of sandycoloured fishermen’s cottages and the Ship Inn. Fishing boats and a rickety tractor line its car park.

A figurehead stands over the front door. Her wooden skirt billows as if caught in the wind. She holds a hanky, clasps her chest and looks, rather mournfully, out to sea. I follow her gaze but spot only the red hulls of cargo ships gliding slowly across the glassy horizon.

On the other side of the road, a small park nestles in the valley. Two streams, Skelton Beck and Saltburn Gill, meet here, nearly at right angles.

The clear waters of the Beck rush past, leaving the rusty-coloured sludge of the Gill to shift slowly seaward.

The Gill is polluted with ochre.

More than 1,000 tonnes have been washed into it since an abandoned ironstone mine flooded ten years ago. The ochre comes at a rate of ten tonnes a year.

A notice explains this to visitors: an official admission, of sorts, that something needs to be done. I read how local people are trying to raise money to clean up the valley.

As the late afternoon sun breaks through the clouds, the water glistens.

Strangely, it looks rather pretty.

But a moment later the sun has gone and the shimmer turns to sludge. Saltburn and the surrounding area grew rich from steel in the 1850s but this is one legacy it could do without.