Along the Howl: Echoes of Old Marske

Marske can justly claim to be among the oldest settlements on the Cleveland coast. The lonely tower of St Germain, with its small cemetery, stands upon ground that has been holy for some fourteen centuries, the first church being raised there in the Saxon age.

For many generations, worshippers from Redcar and Coatham made their way along the sands and dunes to attend services, for St Germain’s was then the only church in the district. The living and the dead alike travelled that route; coffins were borne across the same shifting ground, passing across this hollow in the dunes, a feature known locally as a “howl”¹“The English Dialect Dictionary, Being the Complete Vocabulary of All Dialect Words Still in Use, or Known to Have Been in Use during the Last Two Hundred Years; Founded on the Publications of the English Dialect Society and on a Large Amount of Material Never before Printed”. In six volumes edited by Joseph Wright, 1898. Volume III. Internet Archive, 2014, https://archive.org/details/englishdialectdi03wriguoft. Accessed 10 Apr. 2021.. On Victorian maps, the old village houses are shown strung along the western edge of this howl, looking eastward towards the North Sea.

Marske has never bothered to court the holiday trade. Its neighbours, Redcar and Saltburn, have long competed for visitors, one noisy and exuberant, the other genteel and self-conscious. Marske, by contrast, remained content with its quiet howl. There were no grand hotels: the Ship Inn, rebuilt in Tudor style in 1932–33, provided a few decent rooms; the Clarendon offered modest lodging; and about the same time the Methodist Holiday Fellowship took possession of Cliff House, that impressive sandstone mansion on the cliff top²Huggins, Mike and Walton, John K. (2003) The Teesside seaside between the wars: Redcar and its neighbours, 1919-1939. North East England History Institute. Pages 15/16. Downloaded from: http://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/2633/.

Cliff House was built in 1844 as the summer retreat of Sir Joseph Pease, who played a leading role in founding the Stockton and Darlington Railway and the Middlesbrough Estate. The Fellowship moved out around 1974, leaving the house to decay for a time before it was restored and turned into a retirement home in 1981³chris.twigg. 2020. ‘Cliff House, Marske – Hidden Teesside’, Hidden Teesside <https://www.hidden-teesside.co.uk/2020/04/05/cliff-house-marske/> [accessed 17 November 2023].

Beneath the promontory on which Cliff House stands there are whispered to be hidden cellars, reminders of Marske’s less pious past when smuggling was the local night-time occupation. Even now the village keeps something of that older spirit: quiet, self-contained, and with the air of a place that still belongs to the sea.

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  “The English Dialect Dictionary, Being the Complete Vocabulary of All Dialect Words Still in Use, or Known to Have Been in Use during the Last Two Hundred Years; Founded on the Publications of the English Dialect Society and on a Large Amount of Material Never before Printed”. In six volumes edited by Joseph Wright, 1898. Volume III. Internet Archive, 2014, https://archive.org/details/englishdialectdi03wriguoft. Accessed 10 Apr. 2021.
• 2
  Huggins, Mike and Walton, John K. (2003) The Teesside seaside between the wars: Redcar and its neighbours, 1919-1939. North East England History Institute. Pages 15/16. Downloaded from: http://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/2633/
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  chris.twigg. 2020. ‘Cliff House, Marske – Hidden Teesside’, Hidden Teesside <https://www.hidden-teesside.co.uk/2020/04/05/cliff-house-marske/> [accessed 17 November 2023]