The last time I ventured down Rosedale Cliff to Port Mulgrave was sometime before the world discovered a new way to grind to a halt — the dreaded COVID. Shortly afterwards, a landslip completely wiped out the path. Today, visiting the beach was not on the itinerary, but fate – in the form of National Park rangers – intervened. They were valiantly attempting to restore the path and suggested, if that is the right word, that we admire their progress. Their efforts were indeed impressive, though only half finished. From there, we were treated to the experience of sliding forty metres down a mud chute, clutching a frayed polypropylene rope thoughtfully left by the fishermen. A charming descent, if you enjoy flirting with disaster.
The beach itself was a picture of faded glory. The fishermen’s huts, perpetually battling the cliffs and the elements, looked as though they were waiting for their inevitable collapse. They exist in a state of constant disrepair, renewal, and decline – a poetic, if rather bleak, reflection of the natural order.
Some huts barely qualify as shelters, little more than relics for storing long-forgotten fishing gear. Others, in a fit of misplaced optimism, have been turned into whimsical creations. Driftwood doors and gardens that Robinson Crusoe might envy make them a curious homage to nature’s flotsam.
Once upon a time, Port Mulgrave was bustling, shipping iron ore from Grinkle Ironstone Mine to feed the blast furnaces of Tyneside. You can still, just about, spot the overgrown portal to the old tunnel which the ore trucks rumbled through from Dalehouse. Back in the early 1900s, three million tons of ironstone departed from this now-abandoned harbour.
The mine’s owner, Sir Charles Mark Palmer, also owned blast furnaces and shipyards at Jarrow. Amongst his more illustrious projects was HMS Queen Mary, a 27,000-ton battlecruiser launched in 1912. It is highly likely that Port Mulgrave’s ironstone found its way into the ship. Tragically, the Queen Mary was one of those ships sunk during the Battle of Jutland in 1916 when her magazines were struck. Of the 1,284 crew on board, only 18 survived. The battle, for all its death and destruction, achieved very little – a fitting note for this final showdown between great fleets of battleships.
So there you have it – a day that began with mudslides and ended with musings on a maritime catastrophe. Quite the outing.
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