Beside the seaside (From York Press)

Beside the seaside

11:58am Monday 12th December 2011 in History articles By Stephen Lewis

SCARBOROUGH holds a special place in our affections: the perfect Yorkshire seaside town, with its picturesque beaches, seafront, harbour, and stalls selling cockles and mussels – not to mention fish and chips.

Its heyday as a resort began in late Victorian times, with the coming of the railways and the opening of the Grand Hotel in 1867.

These days it is enjoying something of a renaissance, following the revamp of its wonderful open-air theatre and other major developments such as the restoration and extension of the Rotunda museum, new berths at the Marina, and the refurbishment of the Spa complex.

Our photographs in Yesterday Once More this week, however, turn back the clock to the town’s Victorian and Edwardian peak as a resort.

They come from the wonderful new book Scarborough Through Time, by Mike Hitches, a staff nurse at Bridlington Hospital and author of a number of previous books on railways and local history.

In his introduction, Mike takes the time to tell the story of how Scarborough got its name – and a great story it is, too.

The town was apparently founded in about 966 AD by a pair of marauding Viking brothers, Kormak and Thorsgills, Mike writes.

Thorsgills, who noticed what a good location this part of the coast was to settle, suffered from a hare-lip. As a consequence, he was given the nickname “Scarthi”, or “hare-lipped”.

As a result, the settlement he founded became known as “Scarthi’s Burg” – and the rest is history.

It is the photos which really make Mike’s book, however.

There are almost 100 pages of them, old and new, colour and black and white, showing how much – or in some cases how little – the town has changed over the last 100 years.

We particularly love the beach and waterfront scenes we reproduce today, showing the holidaymakers of long ago in full, formal Victorian or Edwardian dress – and often with a bathing machine not far away, to ensure the ladies’ modesty. How times have changed.

• Scarborough Through Time, by Mike Hitches, is published by Amberley, priced £14.99