IN the summer of 1859, Henry Pease, from the Darlington family of railway pioneers, was staying at the clifftop house of Joseph, his elder brother, at Marske-by-the-Sea when he went for a wander south along the beach to the old smuggling and fishing village of Saltburn.
A couple of years earlier, Henry had visited America and had been bowled over by the “enterprise and energy” of the place, noticing how when a railway ran through an uninhabited wilderness a city would spring up out of nowhere in his wake.
A postcard sent from Saltburn in 1906 showing the old smuggling and fishing settlement at the foot of the ravine around the Ship Inn. On the right is the mortuary, built in 1881, to house the sailors’ bodies that were frequently washed up on the shore. The rocket house and the lifeboat house next to it have been demolished to widen the road up the cliff
That evening, when he reached the deep ravine in the old houses huddled at the foot of the brooding Huncliff, in the which the old village sits, he had what his wife, Mary, later called a “prophetic vision”. “On the edge of the cliff before him, (he saw) a town arise and the quiet unfrequented glen turned into a lovely garden,” she wrote.
All it needed to make it happen was a railway.
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Within 18 months, the line from Middlesbrough had been extended from Redcar into the new clifftop resort. In fact, not just into the new resort but right into the stunning hotel, the Zetland, so that holidaymakers had no trouble in finding a porter to carry their luggage up to their rooms.
Looking from the pierhead back towards the cliff lift on this Edwardian postcard of Saltburn. When the pier opened in 1869, it was 1,500ft long but by the time this view was taken, it was 1,250ft long due to storm damage in October 1875. It is now half that length and still a great walk – it is amazing to think what it must have been like to those first Victorian railway holidaymakers
Within a decade, Saltburn had a cliff lift, a pier, a seaview parade of guesthouses and hotels, an Italianate garden laid out in the glen which was crossed by the breathtaking Ha’penny Bridge, and miles of sand to explore.
And if you didn’t want the bother of going all the way down to the beach for a paddle, boys would carry up a bucket at 2d a time so you could dabble your toes in the cool, briny water without even leaving your chamber.
Although Saltburn didn’t quite grow as its founder imagined with both side of the glen lined with opulent mansions, by the time of its heyday before the First World War, it was a magical place of fireworks and fairy lights, of donkey rides and bathing machines, of steamships and boat trips, of bands, dances and theatre while the firm, flat sands graced by the motor racing aces of the day.
More than 160 years after Henry’s prophetic vision, it is still a marvellous piece of Victoriana with bracing views out over the ocean, gentle airs in the glen and the garish delights of fish and chips and pier amusements down on the prom.
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Memories' favourite picture of Saltburn that we found in a photographic album belonging to a Hurworth family who recorded their outing to the coast in 1902 when bathing machines were the order of the day – you were not seen half-clothed in public in those days so a horse would draw you in the machine into the water so you could decorously dabble your toes without anyone seeing your nakedness
An early picture of Saltburn pier, opened in May 1869, with a pair of entry pavilions
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On the prom at Saltburn in breezy Edwardian times
The Halfpenny Bridge over the Skelton Beck in the centre of Saltburn opened in 1869, after three men were killed during its construction. It was 160ft high and 800ft wide, and was strong enough to take early motor cars, although they were banned when one backfired and startled a horse which nearly tossed its rider over the parapet to their death. The bridge was a spectacular feature of a visit to Saltburn until it became unsafe and on December 17, 1974, it was blown up
On the beach during the 1930s. When this postcard view was taken, the bathing machines had been replaced by large changing tents
A previously unpublished view of Saltburn in the mid 1960s taken in the hills behind old Saltburn with Cat Nab the conical hill directly in front and the pier running behind
A postcard sent in 1972 showing the Skelton Beck had been dammed to raise its water level to create a boating area, and there's a paddling pool beside the beck. An enlarged car park now occupies much of this site
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