Scarborough Marine Drive the history board 1
The first part of the promenade to be developed was Foreshore Road in South Bay, dating from the 1870s. Then came Royal Albert Drive in North Bay, completed in 1890. However, there was still no easy way from one bay to the other - the usual route was over the castle headland.An alternative scheme was first suggested in the early 1880s – a shoreline road linking the two bays. In 1883 the eminent engineer Sir John Coode gave his opinion that the plan was possible, but it was not until 1894 that it was decided to proceed with the scheme, which involved the construction of nearly 1,200 metres of road, wall and excavations on a site exposed to severe winds and seas.The first stone was laid on 25 June 1897, but the proposed time scale of two and a half years was hopelessly over-ambitious, underestimating the effects of storms and the inherent difficulties of the project; delays only added to the costs. On 1 October 1904 the last top stone was laid by the Mayoress, Mrs Good - over seven years after the scheme had begun – and people started to look forward to the opening of Marine Drive.They were not to know that it would be another three and a half years before residents and visitors would be able to walk, ride or drive on the new road.A fierce gale on 7 January 1905 caused considerable damage to Marine Drive, as well as wrecking Scarborough's North Bay Pier. A period of difficulty followed as corporation and contractor argued over what needed to be done.Marine Drive was completed in 1908 and although not formally opened until August, people were allowed on from April. It soon became very popular and has remained so ever since, with walkers, cyclists, drivers, anglers and, at times, dancers!
Scarborough Marine Drive the history board 2
Royal Albert Drive, opened in 1890 by the Duke of Clarence and Avondale, eldest son of the Prince of Wales, was the second part of Scarborough's sea side promenade to be developed, following the building of what was originally called South Foreshore Road in the 1870s.The north side of the town was developing in the late nineteenth century but there were concerns that the further development of the area would be hindered by landslips and even that the existing properties might be damaged by such events. The construction of a sea wall was intended to protect the cliffs from the action of the waves and at the same time provide the base on which a promenade could be built. In 1887, Mr Whateley Eliot was appointed resident special engineer and began devising plans for Royal Albert Drive. In May of that year the Corporation committed themselves to Eliot's plan. It covered the draining and laying out of the cliff and the construction of a sea wall from Peasholm Beck to the Castle Holms with a roadway 12 metres (40 feet) wide and a promenade 7.6 metres (25 feet) wide. On 1 January 1887, Mayor John Woodall laid the foundation stone of the sea wall and promenade, and work proceeded rapidly.Clarence Gardens opened at the same time as Royal Albert Drive. After the premature and essentially unsuccessful developments on the north side - the Rock Gardens (1860) and the Promenade Pier (1869) - there was now a major attraction featuring a bandstand and plenty of places to sit and relax.Clarence Gardens experienced changes, especially after a major landslip in the early 1920s, but the north side continued to develop, for example with the construction of Peasholm Park and Northstead Manor Gardens. By the 1930s both of Scarborough’s bays had many attractions for visitors and residents alike.
Scarborough Marine Drive the history board 3
When the eminent engineer Sir John Coode reported in 1883 on the feasibility of a proposed promenade and marine drive connecting Scarborough's two bays, he anticipated that any difficulties would be more to do with the cost than with engineering difficulties. However, while Marine Drive did cost a lot more than originally anticipated, there were also engineering difficulties and Marine Drive, which was expected to be finished in under three years, took over a decade to complete. The construction of Marine Drive involved a great deal of hard work, much of it done by hand. The castle cliffs had to be reshaped to reduce the risk of boulders falling, foundations had to be constructed and blocks and stones laid. The blocks were made in North Bay and were then moved into position using the latest technology – rail trucks and steam cranes running on gantries that were prone to being washed away in storms. Even after Marine Drive opened, further work had to be done to reinforce it and members of Scarborough Corporation must have wondered if the project would ever be totally completed.In more recent times Scarborough Borough Council commissioned a Coastal Defence Strategy for the whole of the Scarborough town frontage. It was apparent that the East Pier, the Castle Headland and the Holms were at risk and so a massive scheme involving extra protection was implemented. A mixture of rocks and concrete accropodes were put in place and the railings on Marine Drive replaced with a wave return wall one metre high.Royal Albert ParkThe area of grassy slopes and plateaus along the North Bay sea front was named Royal Albert Park in 2005. An area which had declined from a once well used recreational space with sports facilities and a bandstand to a poorly maintained wilderness, has now gradually been returned to recreational use with facilities more appropriate to the 21st century. This has been achieved in partnership between the Friends of Royal Albert Park and Scarborough Borough Council. It is a beautiful area for relaxing and enjoying recreational activities.
Scarborough Marine Drive the history board 6
In order to meet the cost of the Marine Drive project, the town council needed to make more money from the new road than could be raised from tolls alone; there was also a desire to provide additional entertainments for both residents and visitors. Even before the official opening in August 1908, events were being staged near the cafe. Confetti carnivals involved people watching events such as pierrot and band performances, fancy dress competitions and firework displays as well as throwing confetti at each other. Some of the more active participants in one such carnival in June 1908 looked as if they had been caught in a heavy snowstorm and parts of Marine Drive were deep in what looked like multicoloured snowflakes, the result of the colourful lighting employed.Events continued to be staged on Marine Drive for some years after the First World War. These included band concerts, featuring well-known military and brass bands, dances, film shows and confetti carnivals, sometimes attended by several thousand people, some of whom paid extra for admission to the enclosure. Marine Drive has always been popular with fishermen and for years competitors in the town's angling festival fished from the promenade for part of the proceedings. One of the prizes was the Marine Drive Challenge trophy, presented to the person who caught the greatest amount of fish.Motor cyclists and car drivers also participated in events on Marine Drive. During the town's carnival in September 1921, there was a motor cycle gymkhana involving competitors attempting to perform various tasks and tricks, some of them while actually riding their machines. Motor speed trials took place along Royal Albert Drive later in the same week. In the following year, 360 drivers entered the trials and it was claimed that this was the biggest event of the kind held north of Brooklands, the Surrey home of British motor racing.
Scarborough Marine Drive the history board 7
Early in 1906 Harry W Smith, the Borough Engineer, submitted plans for the toll houses at the north and south ends of Marine Drive to the Town Council. Their total cost was estimated at under £1,000.The toll houses were necessary because people were to pay for using Marine Drive, which cost the town over £120,000. The tolls were set at one penny each way for every person walking, riding on a horse or bicycle, or riding in a carriage, motor car or bathchair. There was a toll of two pence for a motor cycle, plus one penny for the person riding or wheeling it. Tolls for pedestrians were abolished in 1943 and for vehicles in 1950.Harry W Smith and ScarboroughHarry W Smith, Borough Engineer from 1897 to 1933, supervised the completion of the Marine Drive project. He is, however, much better known for his other work in Scarborough, including St Nicholas Gardens and the Town Hall, Alexandra Gardens and the Floral Hall, Peasholm Park and Glen, the Italian Gardens, the Mere, the South Bay Pool, the North Bay Miniature Railway and the Open-Air Theatre. His was the hand that laid out Scarborough, transforming the town into a modern seaside resort with a particularly fine collection of parks and gardens.TramsWhen Scarborough’s tram system was being planned, it was intended that tram lines would be laid along Marine Drive, but when the tram service began in 1904, Marine Drive had not been completed. By the time it was finished, the tramways company could not afford the cost of extending the system. Services along Foreshore Road and Sandside terminated near the south toll house.
Scarborough Marine Drive the history board 8
Scarborough's shipbuilding industry developed in the Sandside area in the seventeenth century, starting at the northern end but then spreading southwards as the number of shipyards increased. Families with names such as Breckon, Porrett, Allatson, Sollitt, Bilborough and Cockerill formed a small and closely knit shipbuilding community.In 1691 William Tindall set up a shipbuilding yard on Smithy Hill, Sandside. During the next century and a half, several generations of the Tindall family built hundreds of ships on this site. Between 1771 and 1820, for example, 155 ships were launched from the Tindall yards. By the early nineteenth century the family had prospered so greatly that it had bought out and taken overmost of the other shipbuilders’ yards on Sandside. However, shipbuilding and associated trades were in rapid decline by the middle of the nineteenth century. The development of iron shipbuilding and an increase in the size of vessels, with which Scarborough harbour could not cope, led to the abandonment of shipbuilding at the town by the 1860s, except for fishing yawls and cobles. 1885 saw the building of the last deep sea fishing vessel.By the time it was necessary to clear properties on Sandside so that the approach road linking Foreshore Road and Marine Drive could be built, the area was a jumble of ramshackle sheds and sail lofts strewn along the side of the harbour. Nevertheless, some objected to the clearance, in part because ofthe dust and smells created by the work. However, in comparison with the building of Marine Drive itself, the construction of the approach road was relatively straightforward and quick once the properties to be cleared had been bought and demolished. 1904 saw the completion of this part of the scheme.
Scarborough Marine Drive the history board 9
After the building of Foreshore Road in the 1870s it was suggested that a road around the castle headland might be built to connect Scarborough's two bays by a route that would enable visitors and residents to walk or drive easily from one to the other. Up to this time the usual way was the steep route over the castle headland. That the two bays should be connected by a new route was not a new idea. Josiah Forster Fairbank, the engineer who had promotedthe Rock Gardens in North Bay, opened in 1860, advocated a bay to bay tunnel through Castle Hill to make access to North Bay easier from the hotels and lodging houses in the centre of the town and on South Cliff. First put forward in the 1860s, such a tunnel was still being proposed as late as 1894. Nothing came of such ideas however.The need to stabilise the cliffs in the North Bay led to the construction of a sea wall and Royal Albert Drive, opened in 1890. Now all that was needed was a promenade and road around the castle headland in order to link the two foreshore roads. After a vote of the ratepayers in favour of the scheme, work on Marine Drive started in 1897. Intended to take less than three years, the project took more than a decade to complete, hindered by storms and problems with some of the construction methods employed. On 5 August 1908 the Duke and Duchess of Connaught officially opened Marine Drive, though it had been in use for some weeks previous to this date.With the completion of Marine Drive and its approach road through Sandside, Scarborough had a lengthy promenade that was the envy of many other seaside resorts. Nowadays it would be difficult to imagine the town without Marine Drive.
