Scarborough, North Yorkshire

Ruins of Scarborough Castle

The town was reportedly founded around 966 AD as Skarðaborg by Thorgils Skarthi, a Viking raider, though there is no archaeological evidence to support these claims, made during the 1960s, as part of a pageant of Scarborough events.[18] The origin of this belief is a fragment of an Icelandic Saga. In the 4th century there had briefly been a Roman signal station on Scarborough headland and there is evidence of much earlier Stone Age and Bronze Age settlements.[19] However any new settlement was soon burned to the ground by a rival band of Vikings under Tosti (Tostig Godwinson), Lord of Falsgrave, and Harald III of Norway. The destruction and massacre meant that very little remained to be recorded in the Domesday survey of 1085.[20] The original inland village of Falsgrave was also Saxon rather than Viking.[21]

Scarborough recovered under King Henry II, who built an Angevin stone castle on the headland and granted the town charters in 1155 and 1163,[22] permitting a market on the sands and establishing rule by burgesses.

Edward II granted Scarborough Castle to his favourite, Piers Gaveston. The castle was subsequently besieged by forces led by the barons Percy, Warenne, Clifford and Pembroke. Gaveston was captured and taken to Oxford and thence to Warwick Castle for execution.[23]

In 1318, the town was burnt by the Scots, under Sir James Douglas following the Capture of Berwick upon Tweed.[24]

In the Middle Ages, Scarborough Fair, permitted in a royal charter of 1253, held a six-week trading festival attracting merchants from all over Europe. It ran from Assumption Day, 15 August, until Michaelmas Day, 29 September. The fair continued to be held for 500 years, from the 13th to the 18th century, and is commemorated in the song Scarborough Fair:

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

—parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme....[25]

Photochrom of Scarborough, 1890s

Scarborough and its castle changed hands seven times between Royalists and Parliamentarians during the English Civil War of the 1640s, enduring two lengthy and violent sieges. Following the civil war, much of the town lay in ruins.

In 1626, Mrs Thomasin Farrer[26] discovered a stream of acidic water running from one of the cliffs to the south of the town.[27] This gave birth to Scarborough Spa, and Dr Robert Wittie's book about the spa waters published in 1660 attracted a flood of visitors to the town. Scarborough Spa became Britain's first seaside resort, though the first rolling bathing machines were not reported on the sands until 1735. It was a popular getaway destination for the wealthy of London, such as the bookseller Andrew Millar and his family. Their son Andrew junior died there in 1750.[28]

The coming of the Scarborough–York railway in 1845 increased the tide of visitors. Scarborough railway station claims a record for the world's longest platform seat.[29] From the 1880s until the First World War, Scarborough was one of the regular destinations for The Bass Excursions, when fifteen trains would take between 8,000 and 9,000 employees of Bass's Burton brewery on an annual trip to the seaside.

Memorial slab lying on the grave of Anne Brontë in St Mary's churchyard

The architecture of Scarborough generally consists of small, low, orange pantile-roofed buildings in the historic old town, and larger Classical and late Victorian buildings reflecting the time during the 19th century as it expanded away from its historic centre into a coastal spa resort. An amount of 20th century architecture exists within the main shopping district and in the form of surrounding suburbs.

Notable Georgian structures include the Rotunda Museum, Cliff Bridge and Scarborough Pier Lighthouse. Victorian buildings include the Classical Public Library and Market Hall, the Town Hall, Scarborough Spa, the Art Gallery, the South Cliff Methodist Church, and Scarborough railway station. The town has a fine Anglican church, St Martin-on-the-Hill, built in 1862–63 as the parish church of South Cliff. It contains works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones and Ford Madox Brown.[30] A young Malton architect, John Gibson, designed the Crown Spa Hotel, Scarborough's first purpose-built hotel.[31]

The most well-known landmark in the town is the Grand Hotel on St Nicholas Cliff. Designed by Cuthbert Brodrick of Hull, it was completed in 1867; at the time of its opening, it was the largest hotel and the largest brick structure in Europe. It uses local yellow brickwork with red detailing and is based around a theme of time: four towers represent the seasons, 12 floors the months, 52 chimneys the weeks and the original 365 bedrooms represented the days of the year. A blue plaque outside the hotel marks where the novelist Anne Brontë died in 1849. She was buried in the graveyard of St Mary's Church by the castle.[32]

Later buildings include the Futurist Theatre (1914), Stephen Joseph Theatre, Brunswick Shopping Centre (1990), and GCHQ Scarborough, a satellite station on the outskirts of the town.

During the First World War, the town was bombarded by German warships of the High Seas Fleet, an act which shocked the British (see Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby).[33] Scarborough Pier Lighthouse, built in 1806, was damaged in the attack.[34]

In 1929, the steam drifter Ascendent caught a 560-pound (250 kg) tunny (Atlantic bluefin tuna) and a Scarborough showman awarded the crew 50 shillings so he could exhibit it as a tourist attraction.[35] Big-game tunny fishing off Scarborough effectively started in 1930 when Lorenzo "Lawrie" Mitchell–Henry, landed a tunny caught on rod and line weighing 560 pounds (250 kg).[36] A gentlemen's club, the British Tunny Club, was founded in 1933 and set up its headquarters in the town at the place which is now a restaurant with the same name.[36][37] Scarborough became a resort for high society.[35] A women's world tuna challenge cup was held for many years.[35]

Colonel (and, later, Sir) Edward Peel landed a world-record tunny of 798 pounds (362 kg), capturing the record by 40 pounds (18.1 kg) from one caught off Nova Scotia by American champion Zane Grey.[38][39][40] The British record which still stands is for a fish weighing 851 pounds (386 kg) caught off Scarborough in 1933 by Laurie Mitchell-Henry.[35]

On 5 June 1993, Scarborough made international headlines when a landslip caused part of the Holbeck Hall Hotel, along with its gardens, to fall into the sea. Although the slip was shored up with rocks and the land has long since grassed over, evidence of the cliff's collapse remains clearly visible from The Esplanade, near Shuttleworth Gardens.[41]

Scarborough has been affiliated with a number of Royal Navy vessels, including HMS Apollo, HMS Fearless and HMS Duncan.[42]

Pavilion House

Manufacturers based in Scarborough include the Plaxton Company (a division of Alexander Dennis) which has been building coaches and buses since 1907[48] Sirius Minerals which is developing a potash mine near Whitby has its headquarters in Scarborough.[49] McCain Foods has a factory in the town for over 50 years, and sponsored the previous football stadium.[50] Scarborough power station supplied electricity to the town and the surrounding area from 1893 to 1958. It was owned and operated by the Scarborough Electric Supply Company Limited from 1893 to 1925, then by Scarborough Corporation until the nationalisation of the British electricity supply industry in 1948. The coal-fired power station had an electricity generating capacity of 7 MW prior to its closure in October 1958.[51]

Creative industries have been cited as playing a vital role in the regeneration of Scarborough; a report in 2005 estimated that they comprised 19% of the town's economy. They were also a major focus of Scarborough's winning entry in the 2008 Enterprising Britain competition, with representatives from Woodend Creative Workspace and Scarborough-based Electric Angel Design representing the town in the Yorkshire and Humber regional heats. In the finals in London on 16 October 2008, Scarborough won the title of Britain's Most Enterprising Town,[52] and subsequently went on to win the European Enterprise Awards as Great Britain's representative, on 13 May 2009 in Prague.[53]

In 2010 the town was the winner of the 'Great Town Award', as nominated by the Academy of Urbanism, beating Chester and Cambridge respectively.[54]

The principal newspaper is The Scarborough News, with a history dating back to July 1882, and can trace its origins from the Scarborough Evening News.

Scarborough was home to local commercial radio station, Yorkshire Coast Radio, in August 2018 the station achieved the highest weekly reach of any radio station in England with a 53% weekly reach.[55] However in August 2020 YCR ceased broadcasting as it was bought out by Bauer Media and rebranded as Greatest Hits Radio Yorkshire Coast. The radio DJs and staff were made redundant.[56] Some of the YCR team have since launched a new local station for the area, This is the Coast, broadcasting online and on DAB.[57]

Coast & County Radio is also based in Scarborough, the station broadcast on DAB until the end of 2018 when it became an online only station.

The town is also the home of the online only community radio station, Radio Scarborough.[58] The station was raided in August 2017 by Ofcom for illegally broadcasting their service.[59]

Scarborough General Hospital is the local district general NHS hospital. It is run by the York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and is the largest employer in the area employing over 2,400 staff. A review of acute healthcare in the town in 2019 identified problems recruiting staff at the hospital but promised to maintain the site's Accident and Emergency department.[60]

Scarborough has four major roads serving the town; these also link it to other major towns and cities.

• A64 – Main road that terminates in the town centre, linking Scarborough with Malton, York, Leeds, the A19 and the A1(M). This is the main tourist route to the town and is Dual Carriageway standard for some of its route (between the A1(M) and Malton).
• A165 – This is the coastal route that links the town with Filey, Bridlington and Hull. In 2008, a new road was opened to bypass Osgodby to the south of Scarborough. This now forms part of the A165.
• A170 – This links Scarborough to the North York Moors and Thirsk to the west.
• A171 – This is the coastal route to the north that links the town with Whitby and Middlesbrough.

Scarborough has 25 main bus routes, operated by Scarborough and District, Arriva North East, Shoreline Suncruisers, and Yorkshire Coastliner. These link the town centre with its suburbs and local towns and cities such as Leeds, York, Hull, Bridlington, Whitby, Middlesbrough and the North York Moors.

The town is also served by two Park and Ride services, with locations on the A64 and A165. Buses run from each terminus to the town centre and South Bay at least every 12 minutes seven days a week, with stopping points around the town centre. Buses from the Filey Road terminus on the A165 also stop at the University. Open top tourist buses also run along the sea front and Marine Drive, linking the South and North bays.

Scarborough railway station

Scarborough railway station is close to the town centre and runs services from York, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool on the North TransPennine Express route and from Hull on the Yorkshire Coast Line. It has the longest station seat in the world at 152 yards (139 m) in length. The town used to be connected to Whitby, via the Scarborough and Whitby Railway along the Yorkshire coast, but this closed in 1965 as part of the Beeching cuts. There is also a railway station in the suburb of Crossgates.

There are two operational funicular railways, both situated on South Bay. An additional funicular exists on the South Bay but no longer operates, and two funiculars on North Bay have been demolished.

An electric tramway service with six routes was provided by the Scarborough Tramways Company between 1904 and 1931, after which it was bought by the council and replaced by omnibuses.[61]

Although the town has no ferry services, there are transport links to Hull which runs frequent services to northern Europe.

Dramatist Alan Ayckbourn has lived in Scarborough for many years. He has produced seventy-five plays in Scarborough and was formerly the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre, where almost all his plays receive their first performance. Chris Monks took over as artistic director in 2009,[62] followed by Paul Robinson in 2016.

The Open Air Theatre, in the Northstead Manor Gardens, originally seating 6,500. The Lord Mayor of London opened the theatre in 1932 and audiences flocked to see Merrie England, the opera was the first work to be staged at the outdoor venue.[63] Productions were performed during the summer seasons until musicals ceased in 1968 after West Side Story, apart from a YMCA production in 1982. In 1997, the dressing rooms and stage set building on the island were demolished and the seating removed. The last concert to be held at the open-air theatre before it closed in 1986 was James Last and his orchestra. The venue was restored and officially opened by The Queen on 20 May 2010.[64]

The YMCA Theatre is an amateur theatre seating 290. It hosts some 35 productions a year, including musicals and dance shows.[65]

As of 2019, Scarborough has two cinemas, the Hollywood Plaza and the Stephen Joseph Theatre.

A third, the Futurist Theatre, closed in January 2014 when the operator's lease expired.[66] The building was later demolished.[67] A new cinema development in the North Bay is due to open in 2020.[68]

The Rotunda Museum

Scarborough has a long-established museum and visual-arts facilities. Wood End, the former home of The Sitwells, was converted into the Woodend museum,[note 1] a creative centre including workspace for artists and the digital cluster, plus an exhibition space.[69] The Rotunda Museum underwent a multimillion-pound redevelopment to become a national centre for geology.[70] 2006 also saw the formation of a creative industries network called 'Creative Coast' comprising artists, designers, writers and other creatives with the shared vision of a culturally vibrant economy on the North Yorkshire coast.[71]

The Rotunda Museum nowadays forms part of the Scarborough Museums Trust. The other part is the Scarborough Art Gallery, which houses the collections of fine arts since 1947. This gallery is based in a Grade II* Italianate villa, Crescent Villa, that was built in the 1840s.[72]

Scarborough has a considerable graffiti culture, with as many as 20 'writers' currently active. There are two areas where graffiti art is legal in Scarborough, Sainsbury's basketball courts / all-weather pitch and Falsgrave Park wall. Both have seen many collaborations and murals.

The Grade II listed Scarborough Spa complex is home to the Scarborough Spa Orchestra, the last remaining seaside orchestra in the UK.[73] The orchestra gives ten concerts every week during the summer months, playing music from an extensive repertoire of classical and light music with no programme repeats. It became famous during the 1950s and 1960s when concerts from the Palm Court in Scarborough were frequently featured on BBC radio, conducted by Max Jaffa. Former conductors include the composer of the waltz 'Nights of Gladness', Charles Ancliffe.

The globally successful pop / soul singer Robert Palmer spent his teenage years in Scarborough, attending Scarborough Boys' High School.[74]

In November 1987, the town was chosen as the venue for the first-ever Eurovision fan club convention. Members of the then fan club, Europa-UK, gathered in the Palm Court Hotel for the first such event to be held in the UK.

During the late 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, Scarborough band Little Angels were one of the best known hard rock bands in the UK. Their third and final studio album, Jam, peaked at No. 1 on the UK charts in early 1993.[75]

The town is home to the annual Scarborough Jazz Festival which takes place each September at The Spa Complex, and features internationally renowned musicians. Between 2001 and 2008 an eclectic rock and pop festival known as 'Beached' took place on the sands of South Bay. In summer 2005, Scarborough played host to the Sonic Arts Network Expo.

'Acoustic Gathering', a free one-day music festival, has been held annually in Peasholm Park since September 2005. This features over 20 bands and singer/songwriters from all parts of the UK including a number of local groups and musicians, all performing from the bandstand in the centre of the lake.[76] Singer-songwriter Ashley Hicklin grew up in Scarborough and recorded a music video for the song "All The Time in the World" at Scarborough's Spa Complex and in the amusement arcades.

The films Little Voice,[77] Possession, and A Chorus of Disapproval[78] were filmed on location in Scarborough and surrounds. Also filmed in the district were scenes from An Inspector Calls, Miranda, Dancing Queen, Beltenebros, The Brides in the Bath, The Damned United, Scarborough and Saint Maud. Television series filmed in the area include Heartbeat, its spin-off series The Royal, CBBC's All at Sea, BBC1's Rosie, BBC1's Remember Me, German TV crime drama, The Search, scenes from the second series of Five Days and an episode of Barbara and Coronation Street. The 2015 series of The Syndicate starring Anthony Andrews, Melanie Hill and Lenny Henry also filmed scenes in Scarborough.[79] A sitcom named Scarborough was filmed in the town in 2019. The show being the brainchild of Derren Litten the creator of ITV hit Benidorm was based on a group of friends who meet up for Karaoke nights in the town.[80][81] The show first aired on BBC1 on 6 September 2019 in a primetime Friday night slot (9:30 pm) the day before transmission the first two episodes were given a 'world premiere' to an audience at the Stephen Joseph Theatre.[82][83]

• Leider, Emily Wortis (14 October 1990). "A writer's resort". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 September 2014.
• Page, William, ed. (1923). "The Borough of Scarborough". A History of the County of York North Riding: Volume 2'. Victoria County History. Institute of Historical Research. pp. 538–560.