A fishing smack chugging serenely towards his lobster pots off Huntcliff caught my attention. The morning is still and muggy, with overnight rain fizzling out and the sea as calm as a millpond.
I have been working on the National Trust’s property at Warsett Hill, tidying up an old, decrepit post and rail fence. Acquired in 1991 with funds from Enterprise Neptune and a local appeal, this land comprises a few pasture fields, coastal cliffs, and undercliff areas.
The property harbours archaeological sites spanning many ages of history, from a Bronze Age barrow cemetery to a World War II radar installation. The most conspicuous of these, however, are the workings associated with 19th century ironstone extraction.
One such area of broken ground, visible in the foreground of the photo, is described in the Trust’s heritage records as prospection pits1National Trust Heritage Record ID: 11287 / MNA152642. https://heritagerecords.nationaltrust.org.uk/HBSMR/MonRecord.aspx?uid=MNA152642. There are over 25 such pits, shallow scoops, each measuring approximately 15 to 20 metres in diameter and up to 1.5 metres deep. The main seam outcrops near the cliff edge, and in the 1840s and 1850s, before the railway was built, ironstone quarrying took place here, with shipments dispatched from the beach below.
An intriguing report appeared in the Yorkshire Gazette of 1866, detailing a walk along the coast from Saltburn to Whitby by “J. G.” This journey around Huntcliffe is particularly interesting, as it likely refers to these very pits, despite being recorded a decade or so later:
“Enchanting as everything appeared we had no time to linger, so we began our trip from the beach and walked onward to Huntcliff, on the way to Whitby. This cliff rises to an elevation of 360 feet, upon which the men at the ironworks of Mr. Morrison are engaged in removing the earth which overlie the ironstone, and filling trucks with the ironstone and taking it away on iron rails by an engine to a depot, from whence it is taken by rails to Middlesbro’ to the blasting furnaces. Whilst some part of the mining had been done by gunpowder explosion, we saw some of the men working at the extreme edge of the cliff removing the earth and rubbish from the surface of the ironstone and throwing it over the cliff; and others with mattocks removing the ironstone and filling the trucks, – a more simple and inexpensive method cannot be conceived. The seam crops out near the surface, and the wealth in iron ore to be extracted from these hills must be incalculable.”
- 1National Trust Heritage Record ID: 11287 / MNA152642. https://heritagerecords.nationaltrust.org.uk/HBSMR/MonRecord.aspx?uid=MNA152642
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