Mike Laycock visited a great Yorkshire seaside resort that never was.

The Victorian developers had it all worked out. It was a beautiful spot, high on the cliffs above the North Sea. Why not build another resort there to rival booming Scarborough just down the coast?

And so the Ravenscar Estate Company set to work with hundreds of men, laying drains and building roads and offering building plots for sale at auction. It was a speculative venture that flopped spectacularly, with the company finally going into liquidation in 1913.

And I reckon that's probably the best thing that could have happened to Ravenscar. For today visitors can wander the cliffs around the small village, located half-way between Scarborough and Whitby, and enjoy spectacular and unobscured views across the bay, with most of the clifftops now safely in the care of the National Trust. The only building of any significance is the massive Raven Hall Hotel, which dates back to the 18th century.

I travelled up to Ravenscar during a recent heatwave, hoping to get away from York's rather oppressive and steamy sunshine. Sure enough, there was a strong and refreshing breeze on the exposed clifftops as we emerged from the car.

The National Trust has a coastal centre in the village, providing information about the area and selling gifts, confectionery and lollies. And there's even a small rock pool aquarium showing the type of sealife present on the beach.

We then set off on a walk along the clifftops, admiring spectacular views across the bay towards the picturesque red roofs of Robin Hood's Bay village. You are several hundred feet above sea level at Ravenscar, and it must be some of the most dramatic scenery on the entire east coast of Britain. Less than a mile along the walk is the site of the former Peak Alum Works, where information panels along a waymarked trail explain the story of alum production on the site from 1650 to 1850.

The alum, quarried from shales, was used in the textile and tanning industries to fix dyes and make leather more supple. The works closed when synthetic dyes were created which did not require fixing and it is a place of great interest to industrial archaeologists.

Understandably, the children were getting impatient for the beach - but how on earth were we going to get down there? I returned to the coastal centre to check and was advised to return to my car and drive for a mile or so along a single-track road down the cliffs to Stoup Beck, where there was a smallish car park a modest distance above the beach.

We parked surprisingly easily, and walked down steep steps to the beach, a mixture of sand and rock, for a paddle and a dig in the sand.

Fact file

u National Trust Coastal Centre at Ravenscar is open daily 10.30am-5pm. Call 01723 870423.

u To get there: Take A64 to Scarborough and then follow signs for A171 to Whitby. Minor road to Ravenscar is signposted off the A171.