Hotel | The History of Scarborough
Find Out About Scarborough History
It is commonly accepted that Scarborough England was originally founded in around 966 AD as Skarðaborg by a Viking raider named Thorgils Skarthi. There is, however, evidence of much earlier Stone Age and Bronze Age settlements in the area and, for a short time in the 4th century, Scarborough’s prominent headland was home to a Roman signal station.
The original settlement of Skarðaborg did not last long though, and was soon burned to the ground by a rival band of Vikings under the command of Tosti, Lord of Falsgrave (Tostig Godwinson) and Harald III of Norway – leaving very little remains to be recorded in the Domesday survey of 1085.
Scarborough recovered under King Henry II, who granted charters in 1155 and 1163, permitting a market on the sands, and ordered a stone castle to be built on the towns headland.
In the Middle Ages, Scarborough Fayre, permitted in a royal charter of 1253, held a six-week trading festival, attracting merchants from all over Europe. The Fayre ran from Assumption Day on 15 August until Michaelmas Day on 29 September and continued to be held for 500 years. Scarborough Fayre was immortilised in the song ‘Are you going to Scarborough Fayre?’, making it famous world over.
Scarborough changed hands seven times between Royalists and Parliamentarians during the English Civil War of the 1640s, enduring two lengthy and violent sieges which left much of the town in ruins.
In 1626, a stream of acidic water was discovered by Elizabeth Farrow, running from one of the cliffs to the south of the town. This small stream gave birth to Scarborough Spa which saw a flood of visitors to the town after a book about the spa waters was published by Dr Wittie in 1660. This new tourist attraction saw the birth of Scarborough as Britain’s first seaside resort. In 1735 the first bathing machines were seen the town’s beaches, rolling down the sands, allowing visitors to take a dip in the North Sea 90 years before the coming of the Scarborough-York railway which saw visitor numbers to the East coast boom.
This influx of visitors convinced young architect John Gibson to construct the first purpose-built Scarborough hotel on South Cliff, above the popular Scarborough Spa. Gibson designed and laid the foundations of The Crown Spa Hotel before passing the construction of this hotel to the newly formed South Cliff Building Company. On Tuesday, 10 June 1845 Scarborough’s first hotel was opened – a marketing coup at the time, as the Grand Hotel, soon to be Europe’s largest hotel, was not yet finished. According to ‘The Scarborough Guide of 1787’ most visitors previous to this date, were accommodated in ‘The Long Room’, a public venue historically used for the purposes of reading, entertainment and meetings, a site now occupied today by The Royal Hotel Scarborough.
When the Grand Hotel was completed in 1867 it was one of the largest hotels in the world and one of the first giant purpose-built hotels in Europe. The hotels 4 towers represented the 4 seasons of the year seasons, 12 floors represented the 12 months, 52 chimneys the weeks and originally this huge hotel in Scarborough England provided 365 bedrooms, one for every day of the year. A blue plaque outside marks where the novelist Anne Bronte died in 1849.
During World War I, German warships bombarded the town – an act that shocked the British. Scarborough Castle, The Grand Hotel, The Royal Hotel, three churches and various other properties were hit. People crowded to the railway station and the roads leading out of the town. At 9.30 the bombardment stopped, and the two battle cruisers moved on to nearby Whitby where a coastguard station was shelled incidentally hitting Whitby Abbey and other buildings in the town.
In June 1993 a Scarborough hotel made headlines around the world when a landslip caused part of The Holbeck Hall Hotel, then the town’s only 4 star hotel, to fall into the sea. Holbeck Hall was a cliff top hotel in Scarborough owned by English Rose Hotels. Originally built in 1880 by Charles Anderson Smith as a private residence, the property was later converted into a hotel, offering guests scenic views of the sea and the Yorkshire Coast.
On 3 June 1993 a landslide began beneath the Holbeck and only 4 days later on 7 June 1993, following a day of heavy rain, the building dramatically fell into the sea, making news around the world.
The Holbeck Scarborough incident has subsequently become an important case study for students of both Geography and Law and, although the slip was shored up with rocks and the land has long since grassed over, evidence of the cliff’s collapse remains clearly visible today.
In more recent times Yorkshire Forward (the Regional Development Agency) launched its Urban Renaissance programme in order to support the social and economic regeneration of Scarborough and other major towns and cities in the region, focussing on the need to improve the physical, natural and spatial environments within which these activities take place.
Whilst Scarborough is without doubt a fast improving resort, the programme aims to to help the town fulfill its potential as the jewel in the Yorkshire’s crown with the potential to match the best in Europe, and become a town of international repute.
