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Scarborough Cricket Ground seen from our apartment

We are back home in Sheffield after a very pleasant birthday weekend in Scarborough.

On Saturday we arrived at our apartment in Trafalgar Square. It was clean and spacious. The kitchen-lounge room overlooked Scarborough Cricket Ground which I visited long ago with my father to watch the Sir Frank Worrall XI play an England XI. I remember getting the autographs of Wes Hall, Seymour Nurse, Gary Sobers and Sir Frank Worrall himself - all famous West Indian cricketers. I must have been ten years old.

We wandered around the shops in the upper part of the town and had some tea and snacks in a corner cafe then we went to "The Sun Inn" to watch the Rugby League play-off final between Castleford and Leeds. It was a noisy and unpleasant establishment but we stuck it out to the end. Leeds won convincingly.

Then we went to seek a curry and ended up in the Tikka Tika restaurant on Castle Road. The meals were scrummy. Afterwards we had another drink but this time in The Tennyson Arms where a singer with backing tapes was crooning the night along.

On Sunday morning we were out of the door at nine thirty. We visited the grave of Anne Bronte in St Mary's churchyard. She was the youngest of the Bronte sisters. She died on May 28th 1849 at the tender age of twenty nine after battling with pulmonary tuberculosis. It was the same condition that had taken her sister Emily just six months before.

Anne Bronte's grave

Then up to Scarborough Castle on the headland. Historically, it is a very interesting place. There was a Bronze Age settlement there. Later the Romans came and built a signal station. Then the Normans built a castle that was developed further through the next five hundred years. It was bombarded by parliamentary forces during the English Civil War and later still, in World War One, it was shelled by German warships. There's a lot of History to take in but it helped that we joined a guided tour with a knowledgeable volunteer called Andy. For more about Scarborough Castle go here.

The castle seen from the Roman signal station

Down to North Bay then along Marine Drive that circles the headland. Marine Drive was opened with much pomp and ceremony in 1908 and is a tremendous feat of civil engineering given the cruel way in which the sea batters the headland every winter. It had to be built very strong indeed.

The Grand Hotel, Scarborough

We had reached South Bay with its two harbours. There was more aimless wandering about to be done before we climbed back to the upper town and traditional Sunday lunch in "The Scarborough Arms". Delicious. Shirley declined dessert but I treated myself to homemade apple pie with ice cream.

Then we got the car and headed out of town to Irton Moor where generations of my family lived and worked in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I felt their presence and later I walked along the path that they had proceeded upon into St John the Baptist Church in East Ayton for baptisms, weddings, funerals and countless Sunday services.

Where generations of my family lived and worked

We also visited the ruin of Ayton Castle before jumping in the car and heading up the coast to Ravenscar. With boots on we strolled along the clifftop, relishing the view to Robin Hood's Bay. Ravenscar is a rather strange place. A nineteenth century entrepreneur wished to turn it into a significant seaside resort but the grand plan never quite came off. For more about Ravenscar go here. 

Cliffs at Ravenscar

Then back to Scarborough and a couple of pints in "The Angel" watching England beat Lithuania 1-0 in the final  World Cup group game before descending to Foreshore Road on South Bay once more for golden  fish and chips in The Golden Grid.

We didn't get back to our apartment until after ten. Though cloudy, it had been a great day and a wonderful way to mark my sixty fourth birthday. I am now officially a boring old git. Tomorrow - the old git takes you down the coast to Filey.

Scarborough rooftops