Old Saltburn was a tiny hamlet, when Henry Pease brought his children to pick up fossils and seashells. They would gaze out from Huntcliff for seals and go for tea and "fat rascals" at the Ship Inn. He loved the picturesque character of the place, calling it "the Teneriffe of the Yorkshire coast". He persuaded the railway company to extend their line from Redcar to Saltburn in 1861. Four horse stagecoaches with red liveried coachmen still ran on to Whitby.
The Company built the Zetland Hotel, at the cliff top. Here was New Saltburn, a resort planned around a railway station, with streets and terraces of white houses.The promenade pier was built seawards, 1250 feet long, 42 feet above the water, the large pier head provided with ornamental wind screens. A hydraulic tramway linked the pier and the enviable sands to the resort above. The glen was laid out with ornamental gardens, walks and croquet lawns. An assembly rooms was at the bottom and a 790 feet irongirder bridge was above. A medicinal spring was claimed "equal to Harrogate".
It was all a great marvel. Electricity illuminated the pier and gardens but Saltburn was very respectable indeed. The railway brought the "middle class" from Middlesbrough, the fastest growing town of Victorian England. Pease and Company opened a Convalescent Home for their workpeople. There was a new Anglican church and a Wesleyan chapel, and both were soon enlarged. Within a short space, there were three temperance hotels, three family hotels, and sixty new lodging houses.The library had 5000 volumes, Here were Pitchforth's Bazaar, a Berlin wool repository, a jet manufactory, livery stables and the drains were "on the most approved system". What more could you wish for.
John Rushton
