Runswick: a tale of landslips – and the cholera of 1866

The cliffside village of Runswick Bay 
[Photograph by mattbuck, reproduced under Creative Commons licence]

 

Runswick (the 'w' in the name is silent) lies on the coast a few miles north of Whitby.  Much loved for holidays and days at the seaside, to our sight it offers a charming view of red-roofed cottages nestling under the cliffs of a sandy bay.  But it was only after public taste changed with the Romantic Movement that it began to be considered pretty – and its existence, and the lives of its inhabitants, were for centuries very precarious, not just because of the dangers of the sea but also from the unstable shale cliffs ...  

Here we have the antiquarian Ralph Thoresby, F.R.S., (1658-1725) on a northern journey in the last years of the reign of Charles II – the sight of moorland in November is not one to cheer his heart, and his account reminds us that Roseberry Topping had a long while to go before it would acquire its famous profile:

Mon 13 November 1682

Morning up pretty early; ferried over the river at Stockton, thence to Acklam, where Sir William Hustler has a pretty seat, thence through a blind cross-road, to Marton, a church-town, and thence over the bad moors to Gisborough, famous for a stately abbey ... 

thence over the rotten Moors for many miles without anything observable; the sea at a small distance upon the left; and upon the right hand, hills, whereof a round one, called Roseberry Topping, is a mark for sailors; within a few miles of Whitby, we passed not far from Runswick, the place where, near by the sea-side, stood a little village of six or ten houses the last spring, of which I find from credible persons, the report we had of its being swallowed up of the earth, too true, though blessed be God, all the inhabitants were saved, they happening to be at a kind of wake (as the old manner is) at the house of a person immediately deceased, where observing the earth to crack and gape, made all their escape; shortly after which, the chinks grew suddenly wide, and the houses fell into the gulf. 

On the right hand we left Moulgrave [Mulgrave] Castle, that ancient fabric, and passed through Lith [Lythe], a pretty country town; thence over the Sands to Whitby. [1]

I think the original little village of Runswick stood a little to the north of the village today, which is described here by the Revd John Graves in his History of Cleveland (1808), who quotes from the 18th century naturalist and antiquarian Thomas Pennant [2]

Runswick ... is situated near the sea, and consists of a few scattered huts, inhabited by fishermen, and grouped irregularly together on the declivity of a steep and rugged rock; the projecting top of which juts forward in an awful manner and threatens at some future period to overwhelm the inhabitants.  The situation of the place is singular and must excite the curiosity of strangers; when in winding along the narrow paths between the houses,  they may on one side enter the door of one dwelling, and from thence look down the chimney of another in front.  Pennant observes that, 

"the houses here make a grotesque appearance, scattered over the face of a steep cliff in a very strange manner, and fill every projecting ledge one above another, in the same manner as those of the peasants in the rocky parts of China."  

The houses are sheltered on the north and north-west, and command a pleasing prospect into the bay, which is upwards of a mile in extent, – with Kettleness alum-works about a mile to the north-east.  The lower part of the town is almost choaked with sand, which fills up every passage; and in wet weather is dirty and unpleasant.

The Revd Graves was rather behind the times – for sensibilities formed by the Romantic Movement, Runswick could only be described as picturesque.  By the 1830s the village was becoming beloved of artists and tourists.  Some enterprising person, seeing commercial possibilities, decided to build a hotel at the Bank Top, equipped with all mod. cons. including a Water Closet.  

I wonder if it was completed on the generous scale originally intended and if it was initially as successful as predicted in the advertisement below; in the early years it changed hands with some frequency.  In the early 1860s it was run by a Mr Ivison, but in 1865 Mrs Wardale took it over.  It evidently looked an attractive prospect to people coming from outside because by the time of the 1871 census, George Marshall from Nottingham had taken it on.  He and his family had been in Felixkirk near Thirsk three years earlier – that was where his little daughter had been born.  By 1877 the Marshalls had gone and William Brown from Loftus had the hotel; he was still there in 1891.  

In the spring of 1860 the still unfinished hotel was up for sale:

Yorkshire Gazette, 21 April 1860 

All that New, Commodious, and Delightfully-situated Inn, known as the Albert Hotel, situate at Runswick Bank Top, in the Parish of Hinderwell, in the County of York, lately occupied by Jonathan Ramshaw.  This Property comprises a good Front Kitchen, Back Kitchen, Wash-House, Roomy Bar, Smoke Room, Commercial Room, Private Rooms, an excellent suite of Bed Rooms, Water Closet, Attics, Coach-house, Stabling, and all other suitable Out-Offices. 

Although the Premises are not entirely completed, they are in such an advanced stage that, with the bright prospect of an increasing Business, a Purchaser may confidently rely on his Purchase-Money with any small additional outlay being amply secured.

This is one of Mrs Wardale's advertisements:

Whitby Gazette 3 November 1866

The Sheffield (late Albert) Hotel, Runswick Bank Top 

Is delightfully situated, amidst the most romantic scenery of the Yorkshire Coast, and is fitted up with every comfort for the reception of Tourists and Visitors.  It is modern and very commodious, and the utmost attention and quiet may be relied upon.  Mrs Wardale, Proprietress.

The hotel was highly praised by one J.G., in an account in the Yorkshire Gazette of 14 July 1866 of the walking holiday he had taken along the coast:

as the accommodation is good and the charges moderate, it is desirable to remind the future tourists that there did not appear to be a house on the coast at which to stay where cleanliness, and civility, and comfort, and cheapness were to be had in combination so well as in this house.  Mrs Wardell is a widow, a middle-aged person, and has, so she said, lived in her early days with some of the aristocratic families in the west end of London.  The house was taken by her last year.  Persons desirous of enjoying the sea and the beautiful and romantic scenery in and around this locality cannot do better than secure accommodation here.

On the cliffside below the new hotel lay the thatched roofs of the village – the "town of Runswick" as the census enumerator described it in 1861 when he listed its inhabitants.  In 97 cottages, 430 people were living and there were four cottages standing empty.  The little low cottages would have blended into the cliff face, as they were all thatched (ling was used for thatching in moorland districts).  One thatched house has survived, the one that used to be occupied by the coastguard.

Roughly half of the population was aged 23 years and younger, which isn't surprising because it's only in recent years that the UK median age has risen to 40½.  (In 1911, it was 25 and it was 34 in 1975).  So Runswick was a place with many children.  Of the 430 people there, just 46 were aged 60 and over – and they included a 90 year old, who was the blind uncle of one of the fishermen.  

Like Staithes, further up the coast, Runswick was a self-contained and inter-related community with its own customs, superstitions and habits.  The name Calvert was by far the most the common surname in the village in 1861, followed by Patton, Taylor, Hutton, Beswick and Clark.  Its needs were served by a grocer & draper, four dressmakers and a tailor, two innkeepers, two joiners, three blacksmiths, and a painter who had been born in Chester.  

The vast majority of the population had been born in Runswick and the hundred or so people born outside the village were mostly from further along the coast or a little way inland, and some of those may have had family ties to the place.  The coastguards were appointed from outside the area – how could a local be trusted to deal with smugglers? – and in 1861 he was from Sheffield.  Of the Runswick-born who had left their birthplace, most had not gone many miles or had left for the towns of Stockton, Middlesbrough or Hartlepool.  And of course there were the Runswick-born men who were at sea.

The people of Runswick knew all too well the dangers of the sea.  In 1866, 650 lives were lost on average from shipwreck on the shores of the United Kingdom.  The likelihood of raising the funds for a lifeboat station at Runswick had looked remote – but then came an amazing offer from the people of Sheffield, who raised the money to donate a boat to the village.  It only remained to raise the money locally for its upkeep and for a boat house.  And so, in May 1866, 'The Sheffield' arrived in Whitby by train (carried for free by the railway companies) and was towed by the steamboat 'Rover' to its new home.  Mrs Wardale must have renamed her hotel in its honour.

The people of Runswick were tough and resilient.  For generations the men had been fishermen – at Runswick it was mainly the inshore fishery – and the women played a crucial role alongside them.  They had a hard life.  They got the bait, cleaned and baited the long lines, mended the nets, filleted the fish and packed it in salt.  They launched and hauled the cobles ashore and some of them carried heavy baskets of the catch to sell in outlying villages rather than to a dealer.  They fetched water from the beck and bread from the communal bakehouse, looked after the house and children and knitted for the family.  The children lent a hand alongside them.  

In 1861 there were 50 fishermen in the village and 5 men who described themselves as mariners, and they were all born in Runswick.  But alongside the fishing, mining – another dangerous occupation – was growing in importance and the men working in the mines were mostly from outside. 

There were ironstone mines a little way up the coast at Port Mulgrave.  At Kettleness, at the southern end of the bay, there were alum works which were still operating in the first part of 1866 but would close before long [3].  The jet works at Kettleness were certainly in operation only a few years before the 1861 census, because it was there in 1854 that a labourer at the jet works, Dalton Taylor, accidentally fell from the top of the cliff on to a piece of broken rock and was killed on the spot.  In 1861, 16 men worked in the ironstone mines and only one of them was born in Runswick.  Of the 18 men who worked as labourers, either at Port Mulgrave or Kettleness, 10 were Runswick-born men.

The sea, the mines, the precarious nature of Runswick's hold on the cliff edge – it isn't surprising to find that spiritual needs were not ignored.  As in Staithes, the villagers' independence of mind (and the Church of England's history of ignoring them) can be seen in their strong Nonconformism.  A Congregational Chapel was built in 1829, which had a Sunday School and a Day School – perhaps the 40 year old schoolmistress Miss Mary Agar from Danby, who lodged in the village in 1861, was the teacher there [4].  In 1854, a Primitive Methodist chapel was built.  The sand and lime together with 140 loads of stone had been carried to the site on the heads of the women of the village – which was how they carried heavy baskets of fish, mussels and baited lines, their heads protected by their distinctive bonnets – while the men had carted the heavier stone in handbarrows.  It was too steep for any horse and cart [5].  It became known as the High Chapel while the Congregational Chapel was the Low Chapel.

And it was among these strong and determined people that, in November 1866, an outbreak of cholera led to deaths – and then to a damning report on the state of the village.

So what is cholera and how can it have come to Runswick?  

It's a bacterial disease that causes vomiting and diarrhoea.  It doesn't transmit easily but the violent diarrhoea causes rapid dehydration and it's fatal, when untreated, in half the cases.  

It is transmitted in the faeces of an infected person and the usual way of catching it is in contaminated water.  Unfortunately, the massive diarrhoea – up to a fifth of the body weight might be lost in one day – ends in the classic diagnostic sign of the grey liquid known as "rice water stools".  The stools are colourless and odourless and so the patient's bedlinen – and the hands of the carers – can be soiled without anyone noticing.  And as the bacterium can survive on food – up to five days in meat, milk and cheese and up to sixteen days in apples – the disease can spread without anyone realising it.  (For graphic descriptions of the progress of the disease in patients by 19th century doctors and an account of how it was spread in Hutton Rudby in 1832, see here in Chapter 11. 1832: The Year of the Cholera.

As in Hutton Rudby, the cholera must have been brought to Runswick by someone who was infectious – they must have been away at sea, for work or on a visit.  And, again as in Hutton Rudby, it must have spread from that first patient into the community through the water or on food.

Such was the fame of Runswick that the outbreak was described at length in the Yorkshire Gazette on Saturday 10 November:

Outbreak of Asiatic Cholera at Runswick – 

We regret to record four very virulent cases of Asiatic cholera at the village of Runswick, all of which terminated fatally in a few hours.  Runswick is a picturesque fishing village on the North Yorkshire Coast, about one mile from Staithes, and nine from Whitby.  

Its situation is both curious and delightful, and open as it is to the refreshing sea breezes, one might have thought it was exempt from those unwholesome influences which so often produce disease.  The houses are built on the side of the over-hanging cliff, and although the situation is open, exposed, and breezy, yet the place has no system of drainage.  It is in a most dirty condition, and as there is not a scavenger the accumulation of filth and other offensive matter must be highly injurious to health.  

Hitherto, no cases of cholera have occurred nearer than Stockton and Hartlepool, which are about 20 miles from Runswick by sea.  The first case occurred on Friday, when Mrs Clark, wife of Mr Andrew Clark, jun., fisherman, was attacked with such severity that although the best medical attendance was promptly summoned from Hinderwell, she died at the end of 15 hours from the commencement of the attack.  Miss Mary Steward, attacked on the same day, also succumbed to the disease in a few hours, and both were interred in the Hinderwell church yard on Saturday. 

(They were 47-year-old wife and mother Mrs Sarah Ann Clark and 46-year-old Miss Mary Stewart.  They were buried on Saturday 3 November.  Mary Stewart's mother did not long survive her; she was buried eighteen days later aged 73)

On Saturday, other two fatal cases occurred, the first being that of George Calvert, an aged fisherman, and the other a young man named John Patton, a miner, who was first attacked about five o'clock on Saturday afternoon, and expired at nine the same evening.  The last two persons were also interred together at Hinderwell on Sunday afternoon. 

(George Calvert was a 64 year old widower.  John Patton was the 20 year old son of Cuthbert Patton, fisherman, and his wife Mary Ann, who was from Essex.)

This melancholy visitation has produced a feeling of sadness and anxiety in the district.  We hear that another two persons have been attacked, but we hope that the pestilence will soon be arrested; and with this end in view, the poor law guardians are taking prompt measures.  On Monday afternoon two deaths occurred, Robt. Taylor, an old fisherman of 70, and his sister, Mary Bell, aged 75.  

Several cases are still under medical treatment, but there has not been a death since Monday.  The guardians have appointed Drs Taylorson and Yeoman to inspect Runswick.  Poor Patten, whose death is recorded above, died under very affecting circumstances.  Hinderwell church yard, in which the bodies were interred, is a mile from Runswick, and Patten helped to carry the bodies of the first two victims to the epidemic to their last resting place.  He returned to his house about five o'clock on Saturday afternoon, and at nine the same evening he was a corpse, and the following day his remains were laid with those he had helped to carry on the previous day.

In a matter of four days, the villagers will have walked, following the ancient tradition, behind six coffins to Hinderwell churchyard.  Nor was the outbreak over.  On Saturday 17 November, the Whitby Gazette reported that there had been no fresh cases but that Mrs Taylor, the 31 year old wife of D. Taylor, fisherman, "of whose recovery hopes were last week entertained", had died.  She was buried on 13 November.

This was Elizabeth, wife of Dalton Taylor.  She was the mother of two children, Robinson and Ann Elizabeth, by her first marriage to Joseph Patton and with Dalton Taylor she had Dalton, Dinah and Elizabeth.  When their mother died, her eldest child was 11 and the youngest was just 2.  The Whitby Gazette reported that two children – it doesn't say if they were Elizabeth's – had, however, recovered.

The same day, the newspaper carried the report of the weekly meeting of the Poor Law Guardians, which had taken place on the previous Saturday.  Dr Taylerson read out a report of the inspection that he and Dr Clarkson had made, Dr Yeoman being unable to go.  

The medical men had clearly been completely shocked by what they found.  They give a vivid description of the village – its thatched roofs, the dilapidated cottages, the number of pigs, the human excrement in the paths and passageways.

We can see from their report that they had not caught up with the work of Dr John Snow in the last cholera pandemic, in which he showed the link with contaminated water, and that they believed that the infection came from the noxious gases produced by the rotting vegetation and animal waste to be found in this insanitary village.  They tested the water supply but Dr Robert Koch had not yet identified the cholera bacterium and so the test would tell them nothing useful ...  Here is their report from the Whitby Gazette:

We visited Runswick on Thursday last, with the double object of ascertaining the cause of the late outbreak of cholera there and of devising the means necessary for avoiding future invasions. 

We found the place in a most deplorable condition – beggaring description – a monster group of midden steads.  It was impossible to make a selection of any part for favourable remark.  Our astonishment was not at the outbreak of cholera, but rather at its limited range, and the comparative exemption of the villagers from continual sickness. 

Were fevers of every kind things to be desired, no better means could have been devised for securing a never-ending succession of them than is now practised by the natives. 

Every cottage seems to have its pig, and every pig its own midden.  The house where the last fatal case occurred had two – one in front and one at the end, – and the thatch of the roof on the sea side was on a level with the soil behind it. 

Scarcely a house in the place was spouted, and the waterfall went as it would or could. 

The only scavenger is the rain, and this in consequence of the numberless inequalities of the spot tends to make confusion worse confounded with the midden steads and the make-shift drains which are all choked up. 

There are even no dogs in the place to supplement the labours of the scavenger – at least none were to be seen. 

Many houses are going to decay without any attempt being made either to arrest or expedite the process, and these being mostly thatched materially augment the amount of decaying vegetable matter going on on all sides. 

The people generally seem to have no idea of the value of sanitary precautions. 

The quantity of human excrement of children and adults, everywhere interrupting the passage of visitors, too truly attested the scantiness of privy accommodation. 

The inspector states that there are three privies in the place.  We saw none, and our belief is that were they provided they would not be used.  As the mode of speech and manner of life, so the traditions of the Runswick people are immutable. 

The numberless causes of offence everywhere to be found are not of yesterday.  The place is saturated with the neglects of generations. 

The water supply, as far as we were able to make out on the spot, is unexceptionable. A specimen from each source was brought to Whitby for further examination.  The sources are so circumstanced as to be beyond the possibility of contamination or pollution. 

The cause of the outbreak appears to have been a strong easterly wind acting on the general insanitary condition of the place.  The wind carrying up in two lines converging to a point all the noxious gases emanating from a long succession of midden steads.  On the change of the wind the disorder was arrested, and no new cases are reported. 

Should the wind return in the same direction, and the other conditions remain, a fresh outbreak is not unlikely. 

It is only proper to state that the ages of the last three sufferers averaged 73 years, and that one had been ill for at least a week before his death, the cause of which, but for this outbreak, would doubtless have been assigned to diarrhoea. 

As regards the means to be adopted to prevent similar outbreaks:- 

First may be mentioned a thorough cleansing of the whole village, by the removal of all decaying and decomposed material and the after saturation of the cleansed depots with suitable disinfectants. 

The doing away with the innumerable middensteads, and tolerating one or two in suitable situations, under responsible and strict control. 

The appointment of a paid scavenger, and seeing that he does his duty. 

House to house visitation by the local medical men, the ministers of religion, and other influential persons. 

Lime-washing the interior of the cottages, insisting on efficient ventilation, and generally advising and instructing the people on sanitary conditions. 

The pulling down of ruinous cottages, and levelling the surface. 

A regular system of drainage (mostly open) under professional advice. 

Some settled arrangement with the farmers for the periodical removal of all the offal of the place.

And last, but not least, for the time being a more liberal mode of dealing with the aged and sick poor, notwithstanding their being either the real or the imaginary owners of the ricketty tenements they may occupy.

I wonder how the inhabitants took to all of this and whether they accepted the criticism, cleaning and demolition with grumbling rather than obstruction and defiance.  

Runswick Bay, North Yorkshire by Frederick William Jackson.  
Photo credit: Gallery Oldham, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND  

The great landslip of early 1873 & the threatened collapse of 1900

Seven years after the cholera outbreak, excessive rainfall in the winter of 1872 to 1873 caused a major landslip.  We find the details in the report of a fatal accident and accounts of events at the two chapels:

Bradford Observer, 1 February 1873 

The Late Landslip near Whitby – Two men killed – 

A number of men were engaged on Friday in repairing a bakehouse, which had been damaged by the recent landslip at Runswick, near Whitby, and while engaged in taking the soil out of the oven the arch fell in, killing two men named John George Bell and James Calvert.  William Jowsey, the owner of the bakehouse, was injured, but not very seriously, as was also another man named Zebedee Patten

Northern Echo, 8 February 1873 

Primitive Methodist Chapel at Runswick

The trustees of the Primitive Methodist Chapel, Runswick, acknowledge the receipt of £10 from Mr H Pease, and of £5 from Mr A Pease, toward the repair of the chapel injured by the late landslip.  These generous gifts will enable the trustees to put in a stone also.

Whitby Gazette, 14 June 1873 

Congregational Chapel - 

... Our readers will have seen from our columns that during the late excessively wet season, Runswick has seriously suffered.  In consequence of a great landslip many houses were totally destroyed, and both the chapels were very much damaged, and it was feared by many that the whole village would slide into the sea.  

These fears have abated, the village has stayed its downward course, and the fishermen hope to spend many years still in their curious dwellings, being very loth to leave the bower of their ancestors ...

In 1900, a little more than 25 years later, another major landslip looked very likely.  

In the 1880s an artists' colony [6] had become an established feature of Runswick, with some artists coming for the summer – many stayed in the Sheffield Hotel – while others lived there all year round.  By this time, industrialisation had made huge changes to life in towns and cities, to people's expectations and outlook.  It was the fisherfolk themselves who drew the artists to Runswick and Staithes, not simply the picturesque.  There was an intense desire to capture a disappearing way of life, one that was threatened by steam trawlers and overfishing, and that seemed, as we might say now, more authentic than the new ways of the late 19th century.  

Consequently, when the village was threatened again in early 1900, the artists – who were doing very nicely exhibiting and selling their work in London and the cities, and who had become very much a part of Runswick life – were particularly asked for financial help.  On 19 March 1900, the Shields Daily Gazette picked up the story from the North-Eastern Gazette and ran it under an eye-catching headline

The Village Doomed

The old-fashioned and romantic village of Runswick, near Whitby, situate on the steep sides of a cliff facing the sea at the bay of that name, is (says the North-Eastern Gazette) doomed to destruction unless something can be done to relieve it.   

For more than a fortnight past a landslip has been developing which threatens to let down the whole of the north side of the village, including the Fishermen's Institute.  Large and ominous fissures, reaching in two cases to the doors of the houses, have shown themselves, and the cart road to the beach has already become impassable.  

It is apparent that if the village is to be saved from wreck and ruin a strong sea-wall must be built, and it is estimated that it will cost £500.  The villagers have collected £68 amongst themselves, but this is the extent of their resources, and an appeal has been issued to the artists and others to whom Runswick Bay has formed a happy hunting ground, for subscriptions to prevent its complete demolition.

And the latest news?  In 2018 an award-winning coastal defence scheme was carried out to give 100 years of improved protection and to protect and enhance the ecological habitat – read here about the creation of more than 100 rock pools and look here for eye-catching photos of the construction of the new defences.

Notes

[1]  Ralph Thoresby: The Diary of Ralph Thoresby, F.R.S.; Author of the Topography of Leeds (1677-1724) Now first published from the original manuscript by the Rev Joseph Hunter, F.S.A. (1830) can be found here, on the website of the Thoresby Society

[2] Thomas Pennant (1726-98), naturalist and antiquarian 

[3]  There is a really good piece on alum mining here on the website of East Cleveland's Industrial Heartland.  I have seen conflicting dates for the closure of the Kettleness alum mine.  Some sources say 1866 but The Archaeology Data Service website gives the date as 1871.

[4]  The Congregational Chapel (now a private house)

This is the full article in the Whitby Gazette giving the history of the Congregational Chapel from its founding by members of the Silver Street Church in Whitby, and including the account of the landslip of 1873

Whitby Gazette, 14 June 1873 

Congregational Chapel -  

For nearly fifty years past, the Congregationalists have had a church in this village, and during that period besides the ordinary preaching of the gospel, a Sunday and Day School has been carried on by them.  The work was originally commenced by members of the Silver Street Church, Whitby.  Many of those who founded the church, however, have long since entered into their rest, but the few who survive feel a warm attachment to the place.  For many years preachers were regularly sent out from the church at Whitby, and it is very gratifying to know, that among the old fishermen and their wives the survivors of those men are still held in the highest esteem.  The church afterwards became a branch station in connection with Staithes, and for a lengthened period the venerable and much respected pastor, Rev W Mitchell, ministered unto them in Divine things.  In the Spring of the present year the church at Staithes voluntarily sought to cease its connection with Runswick in order to open a new mission nearer home, and arrangements having been completed Runswick has become a branch of Mickleby. 

Our readers will have seen from our columns that during the late excessively wet season, Runswick has seriously suffered.  In consequence of a great landslip many houses were totally destroyed, and both the chapels were very much damaged, and it was feared by many that the whole village would slide into the sea.   

These fears have abated, the village has stayed its downward course, and the fishermen hope to spend many years still in their curious dwellings, being very loth to leave the bower of their ancestors.    

During the last weeks the chapel has undergone thorough repair, and on Tuesday, the 3rd inst., special services were held when the Rev R Balgarnie, of Scarborough, preached afternoon and evening.  The Rev J Holroyd, led the devotions of the congregation, and Mr Balgarnie preached in his usually earnest and impressive manner.  The attendance was large, the chapel being crowded.  The collections and proceeds of public tea were such as to enable the committee to defray the expenses they have incurred.

[5]  the Primitive Methodist chapel (now a holiday rental)

Runswick, like Staithes, wasn't visited in the 1820s by the Primitive Methodist preacher William Clowes and it was only some 30 years later that the lively worship of the Primitive Methodists arrived and won enthusiastic allegiance, with the women of Runswick carrying sand, lime and stone on their heads for the building of the new chapel.

See the My Primitive Methodists website for details of the article in the Primitive Methodist magazine of June 1854 reporting the opening of Runswick Primitive Methodist chapel in the Whitby circuit.  It was described as a "plain but comfortable and substantial" building with a Welsh slate roof and measuring 30 feet by 24 feet and could hold 72 worshippers.  "The opening services started on Friday April 7th 1854 and preachers included Mr Southron, Mr Elstob, Daniel Gates, and Mr Venis of Fryup.  On the following Monday a tea meeting for 150 persons was held."

Primitive, Wesleyan and United Methodism merged in 1932.

[6]  The artists' colony at Runswick is fully described in Artists' Colonies in Staithes and Runswick Bay c1880-1914 by Robert Slater, March 2010.  It is packed with fascinating details, not just of the artists involved, but also of the lives of the local people – their work, superstitions, the effects of change on the villages from the increasing use of steam-powered trawlers, the reduction in fish stocks, the railways, the rise of tourism ... Tourism and visitors became increasingly important to the local economy – visitors were buying houses in Runswick by 1907.  

Examples of the artists' work can be found by looking for paintings by eg. Frederick William Jackson or by Ralph Hedley.  (There is more on Hedley in this post Allan Bowes Wilson of Hutton Rudby & the artist Ralph Hedley).  The Art UK website is a good place to start.

[I normally justify the text, but it won't let me!]