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Scarborough Review
Scarborough Life
September - Issue 37
TIME TRAVEL Hayburn Wyke has been popular for well over a century One of my favourite pubs in the Scarborough area is the Hayburn Wyke, close to the coast a few miles north of Cloughton. About once a year, usually on a warm dry evening in spring or summer, my wife and I cycle up there, via the old railway track, to slake the thirst we’ve built up. There’s a gentle upwards gradient on the way there, as the track ascends to its summit at Ravenscar, making for an easier ride back. We often imagine the ghosts of all the people who used to work at or visit the old hotel and the adjacent station, on the Scarborough to Whitby railway line. In particular, R Murgatroyd, a canny businessman who owned the hotel in the 1860s. On 16 August 1865, Murgatroyd launched Scarborough Pleasure Drives, incurring the wrath of rivals by dramatically undercutting them. His competitors reported him to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which on five occasions despatched inspectors from London to examine his horses. Each time, the inspectors found the animals were in good condition and well treated. Feeling traduced by the competitors, Murgatroyd responded by throwing down the gauntlet: “I hereby challenge any carriage proprietor in Scarborough, for £50, to run
four horses equal distance with equal number and weight of carriage and passengers, the winning party to take the losing horses as well as his stake. “If this challenge is not accepted, the inference must be evident to all, viz that they are perfectly aware that I have the best horses on the road”. No-one rose to the challenge, the rivals eventually went out of business and Murgatroyd bought their stock. Murgatroyd issued a similar challenge to a rival called Joseph Jackson, who had made allegations about his horses. The two operators were to submit their horses to impartial vets. Any declared unfit would be sold and the proceeds given to the Burial Board, to provide decent hearses and mourning coaches for the poor, at no charge. Jackson backed down. Murgatroyd ran the Hayburn Wyke Hotel for many years, when it was probably at its peak. Besides arriving by horse and carriage, visitors travelled there by train, alighting on the single platform to take refreshments at the popular spot. Opened in 1885, the railway line was a huge filip to the hotel and its ‘pleasure grounds’ – or gardens. Thousands of day-trippers inundated the place. In August 1886, 453 tickets were bought at Hayburn Wyke or
The hotel signs would have been visible from the railway station Staintondale stations. The railway company also ran 12mph charabancs trips out of Scarborough station. An advert boasted that the hotel was “replete with every accommodation … containing commodious and well-furnished apartments, artistically decorated”. “Home-roasted hams, fresh eggs, flowers, strawberries and other fruit in season” were available. The largest room could seat 200 people. Attractions included trout-stream fishing, lawn tennis and “swings and merry-go-rounds for juveniles”. The grounds featured “numerous arbours and grottos”, stables, coach houses, wagon sheds and hay lofts for wet-weather pursuits. An arbour is a shady garden alcove with the sides and roof formed by trees or climbing plants trained over a framework such as a pergola. Among the hotel’s guests was the stationmaster, who paid five shillings a week. This was a concessionary rate. In summer, the
stationmaster couldn’t afford the full terms and had to move out. The railway company eventually built a house for him. The hotel, built in the 18th century as a coaching inn, is today a dog-friendly country pub / hotel, steeped in character, with wooden floors and beams and, in winter, a roaring fire. It boasts a TripAdvisor ‘certificate of excellence’. It is on the Cleveland Way in a corner of the North York Moors national park so is popular with hikers, dog walkers, horse riders and cyclists. Hayburn is an Anglo Saxon word for a hunting enclosure by a stream. Wyke is the Norse word for a sea inlet or creek.
The railway station opened in 1885
One of the earliest photos of the Hayburn Wyke
The hotel after its gardens had been created
“Thousands of daytrippers inundated the place.”
A bridge over the beck
The dining tables had bells on, to ring for service