The Black Gold of Far Jetticks

A sheer cliff edge north of Robin Hood’s Bay gives a sweeping view of the Yorkshire Coast, where rock and industry meet. This coastline is now known more for its beauty than for what has been pulled from beneath it: ironstone, alum shale, jet, coal, sandstone, cementstone. Today, the prize is potash and polyhalite, mined from the depths at Boulby and Woodsmith. All of it lies in tidy layers, as if the earth kept ledgers.

The cove below is called Far Jetticks. The name gives it away. Once, this was a prime spot for jet-digging. A sister cove called Nigh Jetticks used to be marked too, but the Ordnance Survey has omitted it, to make way for the flatter “Craze Naze” instead.

In 1904, The Leeds Mercury wrung its hands over the death of jet as fashion. Black ornaments of mourning no longer suited a world set on being cheerful. Jet was too Victorian, too solemn, and dealers hawking soft, brittle knock-offs finished what fickle fashion had begun¹Jetticks, Herring Gulls, and Hawsker. Leeds Mercury – 02 July 1904. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000747/19040702/432/0019.

Yet the digging goes on, though perhaps “scavenging” fits better now. Two figures were spotted below, hours after low tide, still poking about as the water crept back. What they were after, and whether they got it, is unclear. The timing was unwise.

The journalist in 1904 described his own descent to Far Jetticks. He was hauled up a “perilous ledge” at twilight after squeezing through jet-holes that ran fifteen yards in, ending in walls of slime and greasy puddles. The stone crumbled at a touch.

Jet hunting then was as thankless as gold prospecting. Men hacked at cliffs for months, dragging gear across ledges and dumping spoil wherever the tide could take it. A promising seam might yield only worthless black rock, hard as glass and barely worth the effort. Many left poorer than they came, only for some newcomer to wander in, strike rich in days, and vanish with the lot.

The best jet was flawless black, dense with bitumen, crushed wood turned to stone under pressure and heat. If you were lucky, a barrow-load fetched enough to pay for months of back-breaking work.

I wonder if those two on the shore below know what they are really looking for. Or whether they will recognise it, if they ever find it.

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  Jetticks, Herring Gulls, and Hawsker. Leeds Mercury – 02 July 1904. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000747/19040702/432/0019