Most travellers visit Scarborough or Whitby, but miles of coastline beyond these towns hold more to discover.
The Yorkshire coast runs 45 miles from the Humber to the Tees. Shale and boulder clay erode each winter, exposing ammonites, fossil trees, ship timbers, and rarities.
The famous resorts cover a small part of the coast. Between them are secluded coves, promontories, and abandoned harbours rarely visited.
County: North Yorkshire and East Riding of Yorkshire
National Park: North York Moors (northern section)
Geology: Jurassic shales, chalk headlands, glacial boulder clay
Best season: May to September for access; late autumn after storms for fossil hunting
Trail navigation: AllTrails covers all the main coastal routes with offline maps
1. North Landing, Flamborough Head
North Landing is a sheltered cove cut into chalk cliffs. The chalk, formed 75 million years ago in warm seas, was carved into caves and arches by the North Sea. Robin Lythe’s Cave, named after a smuggler, runs along the eastern cove wall.
The cove was the original lifeboat station for the headland. In 1871, after a February gale wrecked dozens of ships along the east coast, two stations were established at Flamborough: one at North Landing, one at South Landing. The North Landing station closed in 1938 when the lifeboat was permanently relocated south.
At low tide, the wreck of the SS Rosa is partially visible. The Admiralty ship ran aground in 1930; the boiler stands out at the right tide.
The walk from Flamborough village takes 20 minutes across open cliffs. The headland is part of a key seabird colony on England’s east coast.
Where to Stay: The North Star Hotel in Flamborough village has nine en-suite rooms with sea views. The restaurant serves seafood from the local catch and game from the surrounding Wolds.
Worth Knowing: Flamborough Head is the only chalk sea cliff in northern England, offering a distinct geological character compared with the shale and clay coasts on either side.
2. Boggle Hole, near Robin Hood’s Bay
Boggle Hole lies at the end of a wooded valley, a mile south of Robin Hood’s Bay. A path descends through oak trees to a small bay with a converted watermill youth hostel. The name comes from ‘boggle,’ a northern dialect word for hobgoblin, creatures local tradition placed in nearby caves.
In the 18th century, the bay was a smugglers’ landing. Brandy, tobacco, and tea arrived here and moved inland via hidden moor paths, rarely patrolled by revenue men.
The beach is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The rocks are the floor of a 180-million-year-old Jurassic sea. Loose ammonites appear in the shale. Collect only surface material, as the foreshore is set aside for study.
The cove is 20 minutes from Robin Hood’s Bay. At high tide, the beach vanishes; check tide times before descending.
Where to Stay: White Horse & Griffin in Whitby, 5 miles north, is a 1681 coaching inn with 11 rooms in the historic east side of the town, eight minutes’ walk from Whitby Abbey.
Worth Knowing: The Boggle Hole Youth Hostel, a converted watermill directly above the cove, is one of the few coastal hostels with its own beach.
3. Saltwick Bay, Whitby
Saltwick Bay is a mile east of Whitby and is accessible only on foot along the Cleveland Way. Alum quarries on Saltwick Nab produced chemical fixatives for textiles from the 16th century. After quarrying stopped, the beach remained.
In 1824, a nearly complete skeleton of the crocodilian Steneosaurus bollensis was found in shale at Saltwick Bay. It is now in the Whitby Museum. The beach still yields ammonites and occasional vertebrate material loose on the foreshore. The site is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and the cliff face must not be disturbed.
In 1914, the hospital ship SS Rohilla ran onto rocks offshore at Saltwick Nab in a gale, with 229 aboard. The Whitby lifeboat saved 35 people over two days. The wreck remains visible at low tide.
Where to Stay: White Horse & Griffin in Whitby is the nearest hotel, a 15-minute walk along the cliff path.
Worth Knowing: The Whitby Museum in Pannett Park holds the Steneosaurus bollensis skeleton from Saltwick Bay alongside the world’s largest collection of Whitby jet.
4. Hayburn Wyke, near Scarborough
The name reflects the geology: ‘hayburn’ from Old English for a hunting enclosure by a stream, ‘wyke’ from Old Norse for a sea inlet. Each wave of settlers named the place.
Hayburn Wyke is a Site of Special Scientific Interest covering 21 hectares of cliff, woodland, and beach north of Scarborough. The cliffs date from the Middle Jurassic period, and the Hayburn Wyke plant bed, exposed in the cliffs, contains around 60 species of fossil plants from approximately 170 million years ago, dominated by cycads. Specialists from across Britain study the geological sequence here.
Two waterfalls drop from the valley onto the pebble beach. During WWII, the broadleaf woodland was felled for timber and replanted with conifers. In 1981, the National Trust began restoring it to broadleaf woodland.
Access the beach from Cloughton village by parking at Cloughton car park on Station Lane. From the car park, follow the well-marked wooded path signposted to Hayburn Wyke. The descent through mixed woodland to the pebble beach takes around 30 minutes. The route includes some uneven steps and can be muddy in wet weather.
Where to Stay: White Horse & Griffin in Whitby, 8 miles north, is the nearest town with substantial hotel accommodation.
Worth Knowing: Hayburn Wyke Nature Reserve is managed by the National Trust. Access is on foot only via the Cleveland Way or the path from Cloughton car park.
5. Port Mulgrave, near Staithes
Between Staithes and Runswick Bay, a narrow track leads down to a derelict harbour that almost no visitor finds. Port Mulgrave was built in 1856-57 by Sir Charles Palmer, owner of the Grinkle ironstone mine on the moors above, for £45,000. The iron ore was loaded from a gantry onto small coastal vessels and shipped to the blast furnaces at Jarrow on Tyneside.
The harbour was productive for 40 years. Foreign ore and better rail links made shipping uneconomical, and the harbour closed in 1920. Grinkle Mine operated until 1934, when fire destroyed the gantry. Harbour walls remain, now lined by a few fishing huts used by local fishermen.
There is no car park at Port Mulgrave. Access the cove by parking on the minor road at the top of the single-track lane that leads down to the harbour; roadside spaces are very limited, and there are no formal facilities. The steep path to the beach is unpaved and can be slippery after rain. Most visitors arriving by car do not go beyond the top of the lane. The cove sees almost no day-trippers.
Where to Stay: Captain Cook Inn in Staithes, 2 miles south along the Cleveland Way, has nine en-suite rooms in a pub at the top of the old fishing village.
Worth Knowing: The Cleveland Way passes directly above Port Mulgrave and connects the cove to both Staithes and Runswick Bay on a clifftop route.
6. Runswick Bay
In 1682, the entire fishing village of Runswick Bay slid into the sea when the clay cliff gave way. All residents escaped after two at a wake raised the alarm, and the village was rebuilt nearby.
The rebuilt village of painted cottages above the wide sand arc has drawn photographers since the 19th century. In 1779, British navy ships sheltered in the bay from John Paul Jones during his coastal raids.
Hob Hole, the bay’s largest cave, was once believed home to a hob, a folkloric figure. Mothers brought children to the entrance, appealing to the hob to cure whooping cough, a practice recorded in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The bay stretches 1.2 miles. Sand is white; water is clear.
For Runswick Bay, parking is available at the dedicated visitor car park located at the top of the village, signposted from the B1266. From the car park, follow the paved footpath and steps that descend steeply through the village to reach the beach. The return walk is uphill and can be strenuous.
Worth Knowing: Runswick Bay was named Beach of the Year 2020 by The Sunday Times, after which visitor numbers increased significantly. Early morning and weekday visits avoid most of the crowds.
7. Thornwick Bay, Flamborough Head
Thornwick Bay sits south of Flamborough Head, distinct from North Landing. Chalk cliffs, shaped by waves over millennia, form sea caves, arches, and stacks. Some caves are passable at low tide, and light filtering through chalk turns the water deep aquamarine.
Flamborough Head supports one of the largest seabird colonies on the chalk sea cliffs of Britain. In summer, the ledges hold guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes, and fulmars at densities that become overwhelming close up. The noise carries 200 metres out to sea in still conditions. The colony is most active from April to July.
The walk along the clifftop from Flamborough Head lighthouse takes 20 minutes. The lighthouse was built by Trinity House in 1806 on the site of an earlier chalk lighthouse dating to 1674, the first lighthouse in England not to use coal as its light source.
Where to Stay: The North Star Hotel in Flamborough village, 1.5 miles from the lighthouse, is the closest base for both Flamborough coves.
Worth Knowing: The RSPB Bempton Cliffs reserve, 3 miles west of Flamborough, is the best observation point for the seabird colony and holds the UK’s only mainland gannet nesting site.
8. Staithes
Staithes is a working fishing village pressed into a ravine cut into the clay cliffs at the southern edge of the North York Moors. The beck that carved the ravine still divides the village, and the old cobles drawn up on its banks belong to fishermen who still work the pots offshore. It is the most complete surviving example of a traditional Yorkshire coast fishing community.
Dog Loup, the narrowest street in the north of England, is 18 inches wide at its narrowest point. The name comes from an early description of a dog having to turn sideways to pass through.
In 1744, a 16-year-old James Cook arrived in Staithes as an apprentice to the grocer William Sanderson. He stayed 18 months before deciding that the sea was more interesting than shopkeeping. By 1746, he was an apprentice seaman in Whitby, beginning the career that would take him to the Pacific. The original Sanderson shop was washed into the sea in the 1745 storm. A later building on the same site is now known as Captain Cook’s Cottage.
Around 1880, a group of artists gathered here and became known as the Staithes Group. They worked for 30 years, painting the village and the sea in an impressionistic style influenced by the French Barbizon painters.
Where to Stay: Captain Cook Inn sits at the top of the village on Staithes Lane, a nine-room pub directly on the Cleveland Way with views across the headlands.
Worth Knowing: The Captain Cook and Staithes Heritage Centre in the village covers the Cook connection and the history of the fishing community.
9. Robin Hood’s Bay Lower Village
The lower village of Robin Hood’s Bay descends a steep cobbled lane to a beach backed by stone cottages. Several of those cottages are built directly over the water. Several others have already fallen into the sea. The Jurassic shales beneath the cliff face erode at roughly half a metre per year, and the village line retreats with them.
The tunnels are harder to verify than the erosion. Local tradition, recorded in 18th-century accounts, holds that a network of passages ran between houses from the beach to the moor road, used to move contraband inland without customs officers knowing. The village was described as the most prolific smuggling base on the Yorkshire coast during the peak years of the 1700s. Whether all the tunnel stories are accurate is debatable; that the smuggling was real is not.
At low tide, the beach exposes the same Jurassic shale sequence that runs along much of this coast. Ammonites appear regularly in the foreshore material. The bay is accessible on foot via the Cleveland Way from both Ravenscar to the south and Boggle Hole to the north.
Where to Stay: The Bay Hotel sits at the bottom of the main street in the lower village with rooms directly above the seafront.
Worth Knowing: The Cleveland Way and the Wainwright Coast to Coast walk both terminate at Robin Hood’s Bay, making it a significant end point for long-distance walkers who arrive by the thousands each year, mostly in summer.
10. Ravenscar
Ravenscar is the town that never was. In 1895, a development company bought the clifftop site and began laying out an ambitious seaside resort: roads, a water tower, drainage, a hotel, and a brickworks to supply construction materials. The project was based on the Saltburn and Whitby model. When it failed commercially in the early 20th century, the company went bankrupt, and the building stopped. The roads and drainage infrastructure survive. The houses were never built. The National Trust now owns the site, and the clifftop infrastructure has become one of the more unusual heritage walks on the Yorkshire coast.
The alum works below Ravenscar cliff operated for two hundred years from the 17th century, producing the dye fixative that kept Yorkshire’s textile industry running. The ruins of the works are visible on the cliff face above the beach, with loading bays cut into the rock for shipping the processed alum out by sea.
The cliff here drops 60 metres to a rocky beach accessible only at low tide via a steep path. The view south to Robin Hood’s Bay and north to Whitby is unrestricted in clear conditions. The 12-mile circular route connecting Ravenscar to Robin Hood’s Bay and back along the clifftop is one of the best day walks on the north Yorkshire coast.
Where to Stay: The Bay Hotel in Robin Hood’s Bay, 5 miles south along the coast path, is the nearest hotel with rooms directly on the water.
Worth Knowing: The National Trust manages the Ravenscar site and provides interpretation of the failed resort development along the coastal walk.
Practical Tips
- Tide times matter on this coast. Several beaches, including Boggle Hole and Saltwick Bay, disappear at high tide, and access paths become dangerous in places. Download tide tables before you go.
- The Cleveland Way runs the full length of the North Yorkshire coast and connects every location on this list. Individual sections can be walked independently using buses from Scarborough, Whitby, or Guisborough.
- Fossil collecting is legal from loose material on the foreshore. Never use a hammer or remove material from the cliff face, which is protected under law at most SSSI sites.
- Staithes village car park fills by 9 am on summer weekends. The walk from the top of the village to the harbour takes five minutes.
- Download offline maps via the AllTrails app before heading out. The signal is unreliable on the clifftop between Staithes and Runswick Bay.
- Port Mulgrave has no car park. The lane to the harbour is single-track and unsuitable for large vehicles.
Responsible Visiting
The clay and shale cliffs on this coast collapse without warning. Cliff base and cliff edge walking is genuinely dangerous, particularly in wet conditions or after frost. The seabird colonies at Flamborough are active and sensitive between April and July: stay on marked paths and keep dogs on leads. Fossil sites are protected; collect only what the sea has already delivered to the beach.
Reader Q&A
Which of these coves is genuinely difficult to reach? Port Mulgrave. There is no car park, the lane is barely passable, and most visitors who try to drive down give up. On foot from Staithes or Runswick Bay along the Cleveland Way, it takes about an hour from either direction.
Is Ravenscar worth the drive? Yes. The combination of the failed resort infrastructure and the alum works ruins makes it unlike anywhere else on the coast. The circular walk to Robin Hood’s Bay and back is as good as any coastal day walk in the north of England.
Are the smugglers’ tunnels at Robin Hood’s Bay real? Some are, to a limited extent. There are confirmed cellar connections between several houses in the lower village. The full network described in popular accounts is probably exaggerated, but the basic infrastructure for moving contraband off the beach and into the interior was real. The village records from the 18th century confirm significant smuggling activity.
When is the best time to find fossils on this coast? The week after a significant storm. Cliff material falls onto the beach overnight, exposing fresh fossils in the shale. Boggle Hole, Saltwick Bay, and Robin Hood’s Bay are the most productive sites. Always check tide times: arriving at low tide gives the most foreshore to cover.
Can I visit Hayburn Wyke easily with children? The descent to the beach is manageable but steep, and the beach itself is rocky rather than sandy. Children who can manage a 30-minute walk along a forest path on uneven ground will enjoy it. The waterfalls visible from the beach level are the main attraction.
Is there parking at all these locations? Most locations have small car parks nearby. Boggle Hole (National Trust, Robin Hood’s Bay south), Hayburn Wyke (Cloughton), Flamborough Head, and Ravenscar all have designated car parks. Port Mulgrave does not. Staithes fills early. Robin Hood’s Bay top-of-hill car park is large but charges a daily fee.
Where to Stay
- The North Star Hotel, Flamborough: nine rooms with sea views, ideal for North Landing, Thornwick Bay, and Flamborough Head.
- White Horse & Griffin, Whitby: 1681 coaching inn in the historic east side of town, best base for Saltwick Bay, Boggle Hole, and Hayburn Wyke.
- Captain Cook Inn, Staithes: nine en-suite rooms in the working fishing village, ideal for Staithes, Port Mulgrave, and Runswick Bay.
- The Bay Hotel, Robin Hood’s Bay: seafront rooms in the lower village, ideal for Robin Hood’s Bay beach and Ravenscar.
The cliffs here are not fixed features. They are a process. Every storm removes more of them and deposits them on the beach as stones, fossils, and timber. Walking this coast means walking through things that are in the act of disappearing.
