Kettleness

Kettleness, is a hamlet in the Scarborough District of North Yorkshire, England. The settlement only consists of half-a-dozen houses,[1][2] but up until the early 19th century, it was a much larger village. However, most of that village, which was on the headland, slipped into the sea as a result of instability caused by quarrying for the alum industry. Kettleness became a smaller settlement, and was relocated slightly further inland.

Kettleness

Kettleness
Kettleness
Location within North Yorkshire
OS grid referenceNZ831155
Civil parish
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townWhitby
Postcode districtYO21
PoliceNorth Yorkshire
FireNorth Yorkshire
AmbulanceYorkshire
UK Parliament

Historically, the hamlet has had an alum works, a jet mining industry and ironstone workings. The hamlet used to have a railway station on the Whitby, Redcar and Middlesbrough Union Railway, that was open between 1883 and 1958. Kettleness is recorded within the parish of Lythe for census purposes.[3]

History

Kettleness is not mentioned in the Domesday Book, but the neighbouring settlement of Goldsborough is,[4] and both were in the Wapentake of Langbaurgh.[5] The hamlet takes its name from the nearby headland Kettle Ness, but the hamlet is stylised as Kettleness on mapping.[6] The name is thought to derive from Old Norse, where the Kettle part comes from the word Kettil which describes a pot or cauldron. In this sense, the cauldron refers to the cauldron of water around the headland. The Ness derives from the Viking word for headland.[7]

Kettle Ness is at the eastern end of Runswick Bay, and the cliffs rise to over 375 feet (114 m) above sea level.[8][9] The present hamlet was built in the 1830s after the collapse of the former village into the sea in 1829.[10] The hamlet is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) north of the A174 road,[11] 7 miles (11 km) north east of Whitby and 15 miles (24 km) south east of Guisborough.[12] A chapel-of-ease to the Church of St Oswald, Lythe, was built in 1872 for £300.[13] The building was designed in the Early English style[14] and constructed from Aislaby Stone (a local sandstone) with a Welsh slate roof;[15] most buildings have the distinctive red pantile roofs that the area is renowned for.[16] Whilst the hamlet is in the ecclesiastical parish of Lythe, as well as the civil parish of Lythe,[17] the chapel has since been converted into a recording studio.[18]

The hamlet used to have a railway station opened in 1883, on the Whitby, Redcar and Middlesbrough Union Railway between Loftus and Whitby West Cliff railway station.[19] This served the nearby village of Goldsborough too, and in 1911, the North Eastern Railway estimated the local population to be 54 people.[20] Both the station and railway line were closed in May 1958 due to the high costs of maintenance on the tunnels and bridges.[21] The station building is now used by scouting and outward bounds groups.[22]

During the First World War, a field to the east of the hamlet was used by the Royal Naval Air Service as a refuelling point for aircraft transiting up the east coast.[23][24] As the location was directly on the coast, it was also used as a base for inshore reconnaissance patrols, though there is no evidence of any squadrons being based there.[25] After the war, the site was used as a coastguard station.[26]

Geology and industry
Kettle Ness with a glimpse of the disused quarries.

As at other locations on the Cleveland coast, the underlying geology has an abundance of mineral resources. The Upper Lias consists of alum shales, jet rock, cement shales, and ironstone.[27]

The headland was previously the site of the original village and the alum works, which started quarrying c. 1727.[28] The site of the alum works and the associated buildings are now designated as a scheduled monument, and were among the last on this stretch of the coast to stop working, with closure coming in 1861.[29] At its peak, between 1805 and 1817, the workings were outputting 900 tonnes (990 tons) of alum per year.[30] As it took 50 tonnes (55 tons) of shale to make one tonne (1.1 tons) of alum, the headland was quarried extensively, and the workings caused the original settlement to collapse into the sea on 17 December 1829.[31] The villagers had enough time to evacuate as the landslide was quite slow moving, and they sought refuge on a ship (The Henry), anchored in the bay that had come to load up with alum.[32][33] The slump revealed a new area of shale which could be used to make alum, so a new set of works was built the following year, and the houses of the workers built further inland.[34]

Besides alum and ironstone mining, the cliffs have supported a small jet industry, which still entices people to look for the stone along the headland.[35][36] The ironstone at Kettleness was worked in two sites; between 1838 and 1857, stone was won directly from the cliffs and beach being loaded onto ships directly in the bay, though this was described as a "hazardous operation".[37] Ironstone was shipped to the Wylam furnaces of Losh, Wilson and Bell.[38] The other mine was located west of the hamlet and operated between 1910 and 1915, with the ironstone being forwarded to Skinningrove Ironworks by rail.[39][40] The geology and abundance of fossils have attracted many to this area. One of the most notable finds was the skeleton of a plesiosaur in 1883.[41]

Legends and culture

Kettleness is on a trail established between Whitby and the hamlet with tales of the supernatural, some imagined and some claimed as real, such as a black dog (known as a barghest), which supposedly influenced Bram Stoker to put a black dog in his novel, Dracula.[42] Also in the book, Mina watches the sunset over the headland of Kettleness from the town of Whitby.[43] In the 1950s, a vicar supposedly met the barghest that haunted the area around Kettleness, and used holy water to banish the spirit.[41]

The trail was launched in 2015 and covers several waypoints along the way into Whitby,[44] following the route of the Cleveland Way.[45]

References
  1. Wilkinson, George (3 June 2006). "Runswick Bay". York Press. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
  2. Brodie, George (1942). The reminiscences of a civil engineering contractor. Bristol: J. Wright & Sons. p. 14. OCLC 34486482.
  3. UK Census (2011). "Local Area Report – Lythe Parish (E04007688)". Nomis. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  4. "Goldsborough | Domesday Book". opendomesday.org. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  5. "Genuki: Lythe, Yorkshire (North Riding)". www.genuki.org.uk. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  6. "OL27" (Map). North York Moors - Eastern area. 1:25,000. Explorer. Ordnance Survey. 2016. ISBN 9780319242667.
  7. "Teatime has little to do with Kettleness". infoweb.newsbank.com. 13 February 2009. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  8. Leyland, John (1892). The Yorkshire coast and the Cleveland hills and dales. London: Seeley & Co. p. 54. OCLC 59487394.
  9. Westcott, Matt (21 July 2014). "Arrest after man falls to death from cliff in North Yorkshire". The Telegraph and Argus. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  10. Johnson, Ben (March 2009). "North East Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment (NERCZA)" (PDF). archaeologicalresearchservices.com. CHAPTER 6 Whitby West Pier to Blackhall Rocks (Block 1 NMP). p. 93. Retrieved 6 May 2020.CS1 maint: location (link)
  11. "Yorkshire Moors: Kettleness". www.yorkshiremoors.co.uk. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  12. Langdale, Thomas (1822). A topographical dictionary of Yorkshire : containing the names of all the towns, villages, hamlets, gentlemen's seats, &c. in the county of York. Northallerton: Langdale. p. 58. OCLC 228666047.
  13. "Genuki: LYTHE: Geographical and Historical information from the year 1890., Yorkshire (North Riding)". www.genuki.org.uk. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
  14. Pevsner, Nikolaus (2002). Yorkshire, the North Riding (2 ed.). London: Yale University Press. p. 206. ISBN 0-300-09665-8.
  15. "Strategic Stone Study A Building Stone Atlas of North Yorkshire East and York" (PDF). bgs.ac.uk. Historic England. December 2017. p. 7. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
  16. National Character Area Profile; 25. North York Moors and Cleveland Hills. Natural England. 2015. p. 9. ISBN 978-1-78367-162-5.
  17. "Sandsend village church faces closure without help". The Whitby Gazette. 3 November 2016. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
  18. Addicott, Ruth (6 June 2016). "Sound and Vision". infoweb.newsbank.com. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
  19. "Disused Stations: Kettleness Station". www.disused-stations.org.uk. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  20. Hoole, Ken (1985). Railway stations of the North East. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. p. 179. ISBN 0-7153-8527-5.
  21. Aufrere Williams, Michael (November 2013). "Tunnels and viaducts of the Whitby-Loftus line". www.forgottenrelics.co.uk. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  22. Young, Alan (2015). Lost Railways of Yorkshire; the North and East Ridings. Kettering: Silver Link. p. 92. ISBN 978-1-85794-453-2.
  23. Chorlton, Martyn (2014). Forgotten aerodromes of World War I : British military aerodromes, seaplane stations, flying-boat and airship stations to 1920. Crecy. p. 167. ISBN 9780859791816.
  24. "Kettleness - Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust UK". www.abct.org.uk. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
  25. Halpenny, Bruce Barrymore (1982). Action stations 4; military airfields of Yorkshire (2 ed.). Wellingborough: Stephens. p. 99. ISBN 0-85059-532-0.
  26. Philpott, Ian (2013). The birth of the Royal Air Force. Barnsley: Pen & Sword. p. 270. ISBN 978-1-78159-333-2.
  27. Benton, M J; Taylor, M A (1984). "Marine Reptiles From the Upper Lias (Lower Toarcian, Lower Jurassic) of the Yorkshire Coast". Joyrnal of the Yorkshire Geological Journal. Leeds: Yorkshire Geological Society. 44 (29): 400–403. ISSN 0143-6635.
  28. Historic England. "Kettleness Alum Works (1118399)". PastScape. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  29. Historic England. "Alum works at Kettleness (1018144)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  30. Pybus, David; Rushton, John (1991). "4: Alum and the Yorkshire coast". In Lewis, David B (ed.). The Yorkshire coast. Beverley: Normandy Pr. p. 55. ISBN 0950766534.
  31. Pybus, David; Rushton, John (1991). "4: Alum and the Yorkshire coast". In Lewis, David B (ed.). The Yorkshire coast. Beverley: Normandy Pr. p. 54. ISBN 0950766534.
  32. White, William (1840). History, gazetteer, and directory, of the East and North Ridings of Yorkshire. Sheffield: Leader. p. 683. OCLC 224247177.
  33. Ord, John (1846). The history and antiquities of Cleveland, comprising the wapentake of East and West Langbargh[sic] North Riding, County York. London: Simpkin & Marshall. p. 307. OCLC 253903724.
  34. Dillon, Paddy (2016). The Cleveland Way and the Yorkshire Wolds Way (2 ed.). Milnthorpe: Cicerone. p. 157. ISBN 978-1-85284-823-1.
  35. Appleby, John (11 August 2014). "Hanging by a thread: Whitby's jet and fossil hunters". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  36. Barley, Sophie (7 May 2015). "Climber fell to death after friend let rope go to save own life". Gazette Live. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  37. Tuffs 1996, p. 17.
  38. "Inspection of the Cleveland and Hobhill Mines". Daily Gazette (Middlesbrough) (742). Column C. 4 December 1872. p. 3.
  39. "Durham Mining Museum - Kettleness (Ironstone)". www.dmm.org.uk. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  40. Tuffs 1996, p. 18.
  41. Beadle, Brian (5 March 2010). "Country walk from Sandsend to Kettleness". Gazette & Herald. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  42. Rowe, Mark (25 August 2016). "Dracula, fossils and whales: not just any stroll in Yorkshire". The Independent. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
  43. Stoker, Bram (2011). "VI; Mina Murray's Journal". Dracula. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 61. ISBN 9780-19-956409-5.
  44. "Dracula dog walking tour app launched". BBC News. 25 October 2015. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  45. Staniforth, Alan (2019). Cleveland Way. London: Quarto. p. 98. ISBN 978-1-78131-503-3.

Sources
  • Tuffs, Peter (1996). Catalogue of Cleveland Ironstone Mines. Guisborough: Tuffs. OCLC 35135777.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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