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Sandsend NotesA coast notebook, Staithes to Robin Hood’s Bay
Wide sand at Sandsend at low tide with the wooded valley behind the village and the cliffs running south towards Whitby

North Yorkshire · Lythe · Whitby · North York Moors

The coast between Staithes and Robin Hood’s Bay, read slowly

Sandsend sits where the long sweep of sand from Whitby runs out against the cliffs. This notebook explains what is around it: the villages and the one port town, the alum and jet trades that cut into the shale, the paths and the two railway lines that still stitch the moors to the sea, and the food that came out of the fishing.

The four sections of the notebook

4 sections · 49 notes

Four ways into the same stretch of coast. Start with the orientation page if you do not know the ground: the area, laid out.

  1. Red pantile roofs of a fishing village stacked above a small harbour with fishing cobles drawn up on the slipway

    01 · 19 notes

    Shore & Village

    Six notes on one shore. What each village was built for, how the sea and the becks shaped it, and what is left standing.

  2. Weathered shale terraces of an old alum quarry stepping down a cliff face towards a grey sea under low cloud

    02 · 11 notes

    Stone & Trade

    Alum, jet and stone. The trades that ate into these cliffs, and the ruin that still marks the entrance to the harbour.

  3. Cliff top footpath worn through rough grass and thrift, running above a wide bay with a town along the shore beyond

    03 · 15 notes

    Paths & Rails

    How to move about without a car: one national trail, one railway turned into a track, and two lines that still run.

  4. Herrings hanging in rows on hooks inside a dark timber smokehouse with pale smoke drifting between them

    04 · 4 notes

    At the Table

    Two notes, no rankings. The smoked herring that made the port’s name, and the fried fish supper that outlived it.

Every note, in order

First edition

First edition, September 2026. Every note on this site was written for the opening of the notebook and carries the date of that work, not an invented earlier date.

  1. Stone cottages along a narrow street beside a beck running under a low bridge towards the sea at Sandsend

    · Shore & Village

    Sandsend and East Row: one village made of two

    Two becks, two hamlets, one row of cottages built for a chemical industry: how Sandsend came to look the way it does.

  2. Flat wet sand at low tide with dark rock ledges exposed at the foot of a high crumbling cliff and gulls overhead

    · Shore & Village

    Sandsend beach, the scar and the cliff behind it

    The beach that ends against a headland: what the sand, the ledges and the shale wall behind them actually are.

  3. Cluster of white and red roofed cottages climbing a steep green cliff above a curved sandy bay at Runswick

    · Shore & Village

    Runswick Bay, rebuilt after the cliff moved

    Runswick lost most of its houses to a landslip and was built again on the same slope. What is there now, and why it sits like that.

  4. Narrow harbour mouth at Staithes with cobles moored below a dark headland and tightly packed cottages along the beck

    · Shore & Village

    Staithes, wedged between Cowbar Nab and Penny Nab

    One of the largest fishing stations on this coast, squeezed into a beck mouth between two headlands, and later a painters’ colony.

  5. Steep cobbled street of red roofed cottages descending between stone walls towards a slipway and a wide rocky bay

    · Shore & Village

    Robin Hood’s Bay, poured down a ravine to the sea

    The steepest village on this shore, built where a beck cut through the cliff, with a smuggling past and a rock ledge full of fossils.

  6. Whitby harbour at dusk with the swing bridge, moored boats on the Esk and lit houses climbing both banks of the river

    · Shore & Village

    Whitby in two days, from the harbour to the moor edge

    A port split by a river, with an abbey on one bank and a whaling and shipbuilding history on the other. How the town divides its own ground.

  7. Roofless gothic arches of Whitby Abbey standing on a bare clifftop against a pale sky with grass and gravestones around

    · Stone & Trade

    Whitby Abbey and the stairs that climb to it

    A double monastery, a synod, a dissolution and a ruin left standing as a seamark: the layers of the East Cliff headland.

  8. Polished black jet beads and an unworked rough piece of fossil wood laid on a workbench beside small carving tools

    · Stone & Trade

    Whitby jet, a fossil wood turned into mourning jewellery

    A black stone that is not a stone: how fossilised wood from these cliffs became a Victorian industry, and what remains of it.

  9. Stepped spoil terraces of a former alum quarry cut into a coastal hillside with rough grass and exposed grey shale

    · Stone & Trade

    The alum coast: how a cliff was turned into a chemical works

    Shale quarried, burned for months, steeped, boiled and crystallised: the industry that cut the terraces still visible north of Sandsend.

  10. Beck running over stones through deep broadleaf woodland with mossy banks and a stone bridge arch in the background

    · Stone & Trade

    Mulgrave Woods and the two becks behind Sandsend

    Behind the sea front, a private estate valley with two becks, an old castle ruin and a walking access that is not open every day.

  11. Waymarked coastal path running along the top of a grassy cliff with the sea far below and a headland ahead

    · Paths & Rails

    The Cleveland Way, and the cliff between Sandsend and Whitby

    A national trail that starts inland and finishes on the sea cliffs. What it covers, and what the section past Sandsend is like.

  12. Straight cinder surfaced trackbed between hedgerows on a former railway embankment with the sea visible to one side

    · Paths & Rails

    The Cinder Track, on the old Scarborough to Whitby line

    A coastal railway that cost too much to build and closed after seventy years, now a level route between two towns.

  13. Single track railway curving along a wooded river valley with a small unstaffed platform and a stone bridge behind

    · Paths & Rails

    The Esk Valley line, the railway that survived

    One line still runs to Whitby, down the Esk valley through the moors, and it is the most useful thing on this coast without a car.

  14. Stone cottages spread around open moorland grazing with sheep on the green and heather covered hills beyond

    · Paths & Rails

    Goathland and Beck Hole, above the Esk

    A moorland village with sheep on the greens and a preserved station, and a hamlet in the valley below it at the foot of an old rail incline.

  15. Whole fresh herring laid on greaseproof paper on a scrubbed wooden counter beside a knife and a halved lemon

    · At the Table

    The kipper: a herring split, salted and smoked over oak

    Not a species and not a recipe but a method: split, brine, hang, and cold smoke until the fish keeps.

  16. Battered white fish and thick cut chips wrapped in paper on a harbour wall with fishing boats blurred behind

    · At the Table

    Fish and chips: how a fishing port ended up eating them

    Fried fish from one tradition, chipped potatoes from another, joined in the nineteenth century and carried inland by rail.

  17. Stone cottages along a narrow village street beside a beck running under a low bridge towards the sea

    · Shore & Village

    A village calendar, and the people who keep it

    The unwritten list of days a place shares: how it is kept on this coast, and what the keeping is worth.

  18. Straight cinder surfaced trackbed running level between hedgerows on a former railway embankment

    · Paths & Rails

    Flat-country walking: the wheel instead of the line

    A coast walked as a line against a heath walked as a wheel: two answers to how much ground a day should hold.

  19. Waymarked coastal path running along the top of a grassy cliff bordered by hedgerow scrub

    · At the Table

    Sloes on the coastal path, and what they were for

    The last wild harvest on this shore: a bitter plum, a spiny hedge, and the uses a farming coast found for both.

  20. Flat wet sand at low tide with dark rock ledges and a grey sea under a wind-driven sky

    · Shore & Village

    Wind against tide: the sea’s oldest sum

    Why a moderate wind against a strong stream makes rough water of a calm day, and who still needs to know.

  21. Open moorland with rough grass and heather covered hills under a wide sky

    · Paths & Rails

    Trail running on the moors above the Esk

    Rough ground, short strides and weather that sets the pace: the running this coast was made for.

  22. Open moorland grazing with sheep scattered across rough grass under a pale sky

    · Paths & Rails

    Sheepdog trials on the moor above the coast

    A dog, a whistle and five sheep: the hill shepherd’s daily work turned into the oldest sport this ground holds.

  23. Harbour mouth at dusk with moored boats and the open sea beyond the piers under a pale sky

    · Shore & Village

    The ships off this coast: a working horizon

    The North Sea lane from the cliff seat: what passes, what it carries, and what the traffic still means.

  24. Beck running over stones through deep sheltered broadleaf woodland with mossy banks

    · Shore & Village

    Palms in a North Sea garden

    A hardy palm in a cottage garden is a map of where the village’s warmth actually lies.

  25. Single track railway curving along a wooded river valley with a stone bridge behind

    · Paths & Rails

    Reading the becks: what moving water says

    A beck is a machine for sorting itself, and the pattern it makes is the same one the fish read.

  26. Wooded river valley curving away with low cliffs and green banks under a soft sky

    · Paths & Rails

    Sea trout and canyon rivers: one grammar of water

    A modest Yorkshire river and a famous Californian one, asking and answering the same questions.

  27. Harbour cottages packed along a narrow quay under a dark headland, the fishermen’s shore

    · Stone & Trade

    Ganseys: the coast’s knitted armour

    Seamless, navy and patterned in knit and purl: the sweater that kept a fishing shore warm, and the craft that kept it.

  28. Steep lane descending between stone walls towards a beck mouth and a wide rocky shore

    · Paths & Rails

    Wading a small river

    Stand in the water and the beck explains itself: pressure, footing and the grammar of a current felt through the legs.

  29. Wide sweep of sand at low tide running to a headland under a clear sky

    · Shore & Village

    Filming a coastline, on the coast’s terms

    Tides, light and a plan for rain: the work behind the minutes of this shore that end up on screen.

  30. Small desk with notebooks and papers by a window overlooking a grey sea

    · Shore & Village

    Keeping local knowledge, before it goes

    The unwritten memory of a coast: who holds it, who keeps it, and the Tuesday afternoons it survives on.

  31. Harbour wall and moored boats at dusk, the old working quay of a fishing port

    · Stone & Trade

    Games of chance, and the port that lived by them

    A coast that staked its boats on the weather was always going to make a game of waiting.

  32. Coastal path climbing over a grassy headland with the sea far below

    · Paths & Rails

    The walker’s back on a hilly coast

    The same ground that strains a stiff back on day one is the ground that would have kept it strong.

  33. Second Street in Athens, New York, on a December evening: shop windows lit, a few people in coats walking the pavement, bare trees above, shot from across the street at eye level.

    · Shore & Village

    Athens, New York: street traditions

    Athens, New York, holds a July street festival each summer, runs free Friday concerts at Riverfront Park through the warm months, and marks Community Day with local groups and stalls.

  34. A Georgian stone doorway on Bondgate Without in Alnwick, early morning, low side light raking across the fanlight and a brass door knob, framed straight on from the pavement.

    · Shore & Village

    Staying in Alnwick: B&B or cottage

    Alnwick has both bed and breakfast guest houses and self-catering cottages, and the choice comes down to how much you want a kitchen and how much you want someone else to run the morning.

  35. A row of small stone funeral houses with red painted friezes set into a dry cliff face above terraced slopes, photographed in flat late-afternoon light from the opposite ridge.

    · Stone & Trade

    Cultural Travel in Northern Peru: A Reader's Guide

    Cultural travel in northern Peru means moving slowly through the cloud forest and the dry western slopes of the Andes, spending time at archaeological sites rather than passing through them.

  36. A single chair and a small table beside a window in a retreat house room, a closed notebook on the table, late afternoon light across the floorboards, shot from the doorway.

    · Shore & Village

    Silent, directed or preached: retreats explained

    A silent retreat is a stay of one or more nights at a retreat house where conversation is set aside so that the day can be given to prayer, rest and reading.

  37. Late afternoon light on the eroded taipa wall of Paderne Castle, seen from the path below, with the Quarteira river valley behind and the irregular line of the rampart filling the frame.

    · Stone & Trade

    Reading Algarve monuments: Sagres, Milreu, Paderne

    At Sagres, Milreu and Paderne the visitor stands in front of three different problems.

  38. A wet dog on a lead standing on the flat sand at Sandsend at low tide, the sea wall and the row of houses behind it, photographed in soft late afternoon light from a low angle.

    · Shore & Village

    Bringing a dog to Sandsend: what to plan

    Sandsend beach allows dogs all year.

  39. A shaded breakfast terrace above a small Aegean harbour at about eight in the morning, white cheese, olives and tomatoes in small dishes on a metal tray, tea glasses catching low side light, the moored boats soft and out of focus behind.

    · At the Table

    Cooking on the Aegean coast: a short guide

    Aegean coast cooking rests on three things: what is in season, what the boats bring in that morning, and how much oil and charcoal a kitchen is willing to use.

  40. A kitchen table in flat morning light, passport, printed flight confirmation and a folded paper map laid out beside a half-full mug of tea, shot from slightly above.

    · Paths & Rails

    Planning a Trip Abroad: What Travellers Check First

    Most people planning a trip abroad start with three things: the flight, the paperwork, and a rough idea of what the destination is like.

  41. Late afternoon light on the seafront promenade at Sitges, a row of hotel balconies facing the beach, shot from the sand looking back at the buildings.

    · Shore & Village

    Where to sleep in Sitges: areas and seasons

    Sitges has three broad places to sleep: the centre around the casco antiguo, the paseo marítimo facing the sea, and the quieter north zone towards Aiguadolç.

  42. Late afternoon light on the concrete minaret and dome of Kobe Mosque seen from a narrow sloping street in Kitano-cho, shot from below with the old foreign houses in the foreground.

    · Stone & Trade

    Kobe Mosque: Japan's first mosque, opened 1935

    Kobe Mosque opened in October 1935, the first mosque built in Japan.

  43. A wooden desk by a window in flat morning light, with a tide table, a folded regulation summary and a pencil resting on an open notebook.

    · Paths & Rails

    Field sports travel: what to check before you go

    A trip built around hunting or fishing works best when the dates are checked before the booking.

  44. A low-ceilinged Reykjavik listening room before a set: a melodica resting on a folding stand under warm ceiling light, empty chairs in the foreground, a door and a ventilation grille visible at the back wall.

    · Shore & Village

    Small rooms, low ceilings: chamber music in Reykjavik

    Chamber music in Reykjavik is mostly played in small listening rooms rather than concert halls.

  45. A wooden safari vehicle parked on a dry dirt track in the lowveld at first light, long grass on both sides and low sun behind the vehicle, shot from behind at wheel height.

    · Paths & Rails

    Planning a first trip: South Africa and Japan

    South Africa's safari season runs from May to September, the dry winter months, when vegetation thins and animals gather at water.

  46. A gravel road in a South African game reserve at first light, low sun behind a line of acacia trees, a single open safari vehicle parked at the edge of a waterhole.

    · Paths & Rails

    South Africa and Japan: when to go, how long

    A safari in South Africa is best in the dry winter months, from May to September, when vegetation thins and animals gather at water.

  47. A low limestone quarry face at the edge of woodland near Geruge, late afternoon light raking across tool marks, a mossy dry-stone wall running out of frame to the right.

    · Stone & Trade

    Reading ruined walls in the Jura

    Ruined walls are a record of work, not only of war.

  48. A shaded courtyard in a Senegalese village at mid-morning, a metal teapot on a small charcoal stove, three glasses on a tray and a plastic chair, shot from a low angle in hard sunlight with a mud-brick wall behind.

    · Shore & Village

    Field life for a long stay in Senegal

    Daily life for a long-term volunteer in Senegal settles into a rhythm of early mornings, shared meals and slow errands.

  49. A notary's desk in a Polish town office, late morning light through a tall window, an open land register file and a pen beside a folded deed, medium shot from the side.

    · Stone & Trade

    Buying a house in Poland: what German buyers ask

    Buying a house in Poland is a notarial process, not a handshake.

Other shores, other notebooks

Eight kept open

In County Mayo, a field journal of the Moy Valley records the same kind of shore: coastal walks along Killala Bay and community notes out of Ballina. On the New South Wales coast, a coastal wildlife guide covers the shore birds and lagoon animals of Batemans Bay. Another walking coast is Galicia’s Costa da Morte, covered in notes on walking the Costa da Morte out to the lighthouse at Fisterra. And for readers who walk for their health, a plain guide to walking for heart health sets out pace, regularity and when to ask a clinician.

On fresh water, a notebook on fishing Eagle Lake in Ontario records seasons, depths and lures the way the Esk’s anglers keep theirs. A landscape photographer keeps a northern light notebook covering Yorkshire and Cumbria, the same light this coast gets at dawn. Across the Salish Sea, a civic notebook from the San Juan Islands keeps lodge history and community notes. And from further off, a Japanese hot spring town notebook keeps a hundred years of local history in short entries.