Stone Row Cottage on the North Yorkshire Coast

14/06/2026

Last chance to add your Skinningrove photos 📸🌊

Entries now close at 7.30pm tonight, so there are just 2 hours left if you’d like to add one or several.

Some really lovely entries already — thank you.

Fancy being our next cover star? 📸🌊

This was last year’s winning cover photo — and it was a corker.

People love Skinningrove, and now’s your chance to share some of your favourite photos.

Skinningrove can be captured in so many different ways — beach, village, cliffs, dogs having fun on the sand, fish and chips, a moody sky, a sunny day, or just a photo from Skinningrove that you love. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it can just be fun.
Pop your photos in the comments below.

Landscape photos work best for a cover photo, but don’t worry too much.
You’ve got 48 hours — entries close on Sunday evening at 7pm.

One image will be chosen next week to use as our cover photo for a while, with full credit of course.
Looking forward to seeing them. 🩵

12/06/2026

Fancy being our next cover star? 📸🌊

This was last year’s winning cover photo — and it was a corker.

People love Skinningrove, and now’s your chance to share some of your favourite photos.

Skinningrove can be captured in so many different ways — beach, village, cliffs, dogs having fun on the sand, fish and chips, a moody sky, a sunny day, or just a photo from Skinningrove that you love. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it can just be fun.
Pop your photos in the comments below.

Landscape photos work best for a cover photo, but don’t worry too much.
You’ve got 48 hours — entries close on Sunday evening at 7pm.

One image will be chosen next week to use as our cover photo for a while, with full credit of course.
Looking forward to seeing them. 🩵

07/06/2026

Skinningrove — beautiful just as it is. 🩵🌊⛵️

06/06/2026

SS Hummersea — “SS” stands for screw steamer, meaning a steam-powered vessel driven by a screw propeller — was one of the small steam cargo ships connected with Skinningrove Iron Company.

She was a 539 gross ton steam cargo vessel and one of four company ships that worked from Skinningrove Jetty, carrying away iron products, especially pig iron, from the works.

She was 130 feet long, which is nearly the length of four buses.

SS Hummersea travelled to places such as Caen in France, and Skinningrove’s company ships are also linked with routes to Grangemouth in Scotland. So these vessels were probably doing short coastal and near-European cargo runs from Skinningrove or Middlesbrough, carrying pig iron and iron goods.

When visiting Skinningrove beach, you might have noticed broken bricks — or even whole bricks — marked Bonnybridge or Dougall.

Bonnybridge is in Stirlingshire, not far from the Forth and Grangemouth area, and it was once a major brick and fireclay-making district. Bonnybridge-marked bricks are associated with the Bonnybridge Silica & Fireclay Brickworks, while Dougall bricks are linked with James Dougall & Sons Ltd.

So perhaps ships like SS Hummersea didn’t always return empty after carrying Skinningrove pig iron north to Scotland. They may have come back with Scottish bricks or firebricks as useful return cargo or ballast.

Those bricks could then have been used locally around the works, jetty, railway or buildings — with some eventually finding their way onto the beach.

Sadly, SS Hummersea disappeared during the First World War. On 30 December 1915, she left Middlesbrough bound for Caen, France. Nothing more was heard from her. She was later posted as missing, and unfortunately there were no survivors.

The crew are commemorated at the Tower Hill Memorial in London. Names recorded include Charles F. Hannaford, Peter Dodds, Thomas Henry Burrows, John Jacobsen, Joseph Wilson, David Wilson, Thomas R. Laverick and others.
🌊🧱⚓

05/06/2026

I keep hearing people say this is one of the best fish and chip shops in North Yorkshire — and how lucky are we to have it right here in Skinningrove. 🐟🍟

Beach Road Fisheries

02/06/2026

Looks like a new parking meter has appeared at Skinningrove beach car park — although it isn't running quite yet.

Apparently parking will still be free for up to 4 hours, which sounds handy for beach walks, dog walks, popping down to enjoy the sea air.

What are people’s thoughts on it? 🌊

30/05/2026

A pleasant evening in Skinningrove 🩵

30/05/2026

🕊 Skinningrove has a quiet, enduring tradition that still soars above its rooftops: pigeon racing. 🕊️

Pigeon racing became deeply rooted here in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Skinningrove was a thriving ironstone mining village.

After long, demanding hours underground, miners needed something to pour their energy, skill and pride into — and pigeon racing became far more than just a pastime.

It was part of village life.

Friendships were formed, rivalries grew, stories were shared, and eyes would turn to the skies as the birds made their way home.

The pigeon lofts, often built from whatever materials were to hand, became part of the landscape — tucked into the hillside above the village.

Even today, walking along the beck in Skinningrove, you can still see active lofts and hear the birds circling overhead.

One of the most powerful parts of pigeon racing is the liberation. After travelling in specially adapted lorries, the birds are released together — sometimes hundreds or even thousands at once — bursting into the sky in a rush of wings. It must have been an incredible sight.

And then came the wait.

Back in Skinningrove, people would scan the horizon, hoping their bird would be the first to return.

Our neighbour Tommy, now 84, often talks about those days. He remembers the excitement of waiting, heart pounding, watching for that first flash of feathers coming home.
If the men were away at work, it might be their wives watching instead, ready to shout the news.
In those days, the returning birds wore rubber leg rings, which were removed and clocked in by hand. Today, as Tommy says, “it’s all electronic” — a pad at the loft records the moment the pigeon arrives, and the fancier might not even need to be there.

But there’s something very special about the old way: standing outside, eyes on the sky, waiting for your bird to come home. 🕊️
Skinningrove’s pigeon-racing tradition isn’t just something to look back on. It’s still here — quietly part of the rhythm of village life, and a living link between past and present.

Is pigeon racing something that’s been part of your story, or your family’s? 🏡
I’d love to hear your memories in the comments — or see any old photos if you have them.

Please tap 👍 or ❤️ if you enjoyed this — it really helps my page.
Thank you.

30/05/2026

We’ve visited Whitby many times before, but this was the first time we’d used the open-top bus. 🚌

It was such a lovely way to see the town, and the guided tour meant we learnt far more about Whitby than we ever have just wandering around on our own.

You get brilliant views of the Abbey too, which is especially handy if you’re not planning to go in and visit it.

You can hop on and off, they run really frequently, and it helped us make the most of our short stay in Whitby.

Tickets were £9 per adult when we went, and you can buy them on the bus.
Coastal & Country Coaches, home of The Whitby Town Tour Bus

Definitely worth doing if you’re visiting the area. 🌊

28/05/2026

What a brilliant idea 👏 — thank you to the students and staff from Endeavour at Prior Pursglove College (Official) for creating this lovely beach library box.

🏖We borrowed the little digger and our granddaughter had a great time playing with it on Skinningrove beach.
We also found a discarded spade left on the sand, so popped that in too — borrow, play, return… and add to it if you can. 🏖

Sadly, we also picked up a blanket, a towel and a used BBQ still full of coal. Such a shame when people come to enjoy a beautiful beach with their families and then leave it looking like a rubbish bin.😞

Skinningrove is gorgeous — let’s keep it that way. 🌊💙