Our library

The Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre has a reference library of over 1,500 books on local history, seamanship, shipping, naval warfare, fishing, maritime arts and crafts and famous seafaring people.

Many of the books are about Scarborough. In “Did you know Scarborough?” there are some useful facts and quiz questions plus a recipe for Scarborough muffins.

Muriel Davidson in “A Wren's Tale” discloses Scarborough's secret link with Bletchley Park as she recalls her work as a radio mechanic at the Scarborough Listening Centre and shows a copy of her Freedom of Bletchley Park certificate in honour of her work there.

“Scarborough's Fishermen and Firemen's Charity Centenary Book” by Marie Belfitt describes the work of the fund from 1893-1993 with photographs of local people and events such as the firemen's tug-of-war team in 1898.

A book by John Leather “Albert Strange, yacht designer and artist” is packed with diagrams of his yachts and copies of this book can be purchased at the Maritime Centre.

There are only a few novels in the library, but the special place goes to Val Woods “Harbour Girl” - a story set in Scarborough from 1880. Val did a lot of her research for the book at the Heritage Centre and her thanks, especially to our Archivist Jennifer, are recorded in the book with praise too for the Centre's web site.(www.scarboroughmaritimeheritage.org.uk).

A cute little book is “The Lifeboat That Died Of Shame “ by Billy Inkwell Ashtray the author's name should be a clue to this humorous tale of a lifeboat repeatedly cast aside by owners.

There are many books on naval warfare and warships with a section devoted to specific ships. Due to the Titanic's connections with Scarborough ther are several book on its fate too.

Plenty of ships have met their fate in the waters around Scarborough. Ron Young has written 3 books about shipwrecks on the East Coast. One of the most famous shipwrecks is that of the Rohilla built, like the Titanic, by Harland and Wolf in Belfast. Rohilla was on her way from Leith Docks to Dunkirk to evacuate troops wounded on the Western Front. She carried 127 crew, 100 medical staff, a Roman Catholic priest and a ship's cat. She crashed on Scar Reef 550 meters from Whitby's towering cliffs.

On a brighter note, let's not forget that Scarborough was a famous Victorian and Edwardian seaside resort and there are lots of old photographs of people enjoying themselves at Scarborough seaside. Queen Victoria wrote in her diary “drove down to the beach with my maid and went into the bathing hut  where I  undressed and bathed… I thought it was delightful”. Bathing huts were very popular in Scarborough and cards depicting  a bathing hut on the South Bay beach can be purchased at the Maritime Centre for £1.

Among the biographies is a book called “Yorkshire Fisherfolk” by  Peter Frank which is packed with photographs such as the Filey flither-pickers in 1865 and tells how the women travelled to Cloughton to get bait. They would lodge in widows cottages paying 3d a night each and sleeping 3 to a bed. A more detailed book about the life of these women is “The Flither Pickers” by Theresa Tomlinson.

Did you know there was a proposal to site an Aerodrome at Scarborough to keep abreast of progressive seaside resorts? The Future Development Of Scarborough explains that it was felt that many routes would be better served by air transport than rail such as Hull and other cities in the West Riding.

All these books are available at Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre's reference library Wednesday to Sunday 11am-4pm.

Here is a list of some of the books that can be accessed in our heritage centre.