03/10/2026
It’s anyone’s guess which way this weather is going to go at Staithes - which seems fairly appropriate for a village built around the North Sea.
The name Staithes comes from the Old English for a ‘landing place’, and the harbour sits tucked between Cowbar Nab and Penny Nab, headlands which give it some protection from the worst of the sea. By the 1800s this little village had become one of the North East’s biggest fishing ports, with around 300 men working from more than 100 boats.
There’s far more than fishing packed into these cliffs as well. Alum, ironstone and jet were all worked around Staithes, Captain Cook spent time here as a 16-year-old shop assistant before heading to sea, and the village later attracted the Staithes Group of artists. So while the sky can’t quite decide what it’s doing, there are several centuries of North Yorkshire history squeezed into the view beneath it.
