Port Mulgrave and Runswick Bay

In many respects, Runswick Bay is reminiscent of the fishing villages of Devon and Cornwall. Palm trees flourish in many of the gardens, and plants such as mind-your-own-business and silver ragwort have escaped to grow wild around the village where they were once cultivated. Another plant unusual in the north-east is old man's beard, which grows by the wooden bridge over Lingrow Beck, while sweet-scented wallflowers provide a riot of colour up the cliffs in springtime.

One night in 1664, while most of the villagers were attending a wake, the village began to slide down the cliff; by morning, all houses had fallen into the sea except that of the dead man. The original village was to the north of the present one, and the track leading into the village today is the old road which served as the only access before 1962.

Originally each cottage had a stone outside it (2.5 feet high called a 'bink') used for tasks like washing clothes; though mostly disappeared, one remains outside 'Ocean View'. The Methodist Chapel was built in 1829 by the women of the village, and beyond it is 'Spout House' where a spring supplied water to many cottages until the 1950s. The population of Runswick Bay had shrunk to about 40 permanent inhabitants by the 1990s, with the majority of cottages becoming holiday homes.

The coast from Rosedale Wyke to Port Mulgrave is formed of Lower Jurassic Age rocks (shale with sandstone above). The shale contains a wealth of marine mollusc fossils, especially ammonites such as dactylioceras (coiled shellfish related to modern squids), alongside seams of jet (an impure coal used in jewellery) and small cubic and octahedral crystals of iron pyrites (fool's gold).

Port Mulgrave is a shadow of its former glory when ironstone was shipped from its harbour, brought from mines inland through a tunnel whose bricked-up entrance is still visible below the cliffs near the harbour ruins.

Acknowledgment: Text derived from the Out and Out Series; Discovering the Countryside on Foot. Pictures courtesy of Wikipedia.