Whitby’s nautical heritage runs deep in the town’s blood, and everywhere you go there are reminders of this affiliation – from the dark passageway leading to the old and evocatively-named Old Smuggler caf, nestled unexpectedly between two modern shops on Baxtergate – to the more obvious reminders in and around the town’s harbor.
Whitby’s first and last link with the sea was fishing – ever since its foundation, fishing has been a means of supplying the settlement with food, but over the years fishing and ship-building were to grow from subsistence and small-scale businesses to become major sources of income for the town.
By 1706, Whitby was the sixth-largest shipbuilding port in the UK, building more than 130 cargo ships each year. The output of the local alum mines kept local merchant shipowners busy transporting alum for the textile and tanning industries, and the coastal trade in coal had a strong presence in Whitby.
Although the alum industry gradually closed down in the 19th century, rendered redundant by more modern dyeing technologies, by then the Industrial Revolution had led to an increase in demand for one...
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