There are numerous tales about smuggling in Robin Hood's Bay, Whitby, Staithes & Scarborough. and its often claimed these places contain numerous smuggler’s tunnels. There are a number of documented stories about smugglers and the press gang operating in or from Robin Hood's bay and elsewhere.. The few accounts of smuggling were collected by JR Harrison of Whitby and published in the Yorkshire Weekly Post of September, 1936.
The largest so called smuggler's' tunnel enters the sea at the Wayfoot in Robin Hood's Bay and It was built to cover Kings Beck to allow extra buildings to be built above it.. It was built sometime prior to 1680. The tunnel is only about 100 yards long and dark. There is a junction with another beck, Marna Dale joining it and this stream is the one which enters the village a little way upstream from Albion street. There are two or perhaps three small, now filled in, holes in the roof of the tunnel. Non is larger than 1ft in width.
It is the most unlikely place to use for any smuggling. It is dark, often flowing with a decent amount of water and the two or three very small holes, now blocked, are in the roof of the tunnel, just about head hight. They would be far too small to have had someone climb in or out. Only relatively small items could be lifted in easily. You would also need some kind of lighting - and at night any smuggler could be seen by anyone either looking in the tunnel or outside. The tunnel echos noise and rather difficult to use.. It is sometimes claimed that the beck would be used to smuggle goods out of the village. However, the beck is overlooked by the main village road on one side and Chapel Street on the other. I'd also suggest that it would be difficult to use the beck to take any quantities of smuggled goods out of the village.
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| Kings Beck from the bridge. |
Until the public sewer was built in modern times all the sewerage was deposited into the beck and many of the houses on Chapel street still have small ‘outhouses’, which once contained toilets. The becks running through the village would be full of human waste. These small tunnels were almost certainly built to carry sewerage from the domestic houses above. Still present around the village, especially along the narrow alleyways and streets are rainwater drainage holes and of course these discharges into the beck.
There’s lots of tales of smuggled goods being passed from house to house from one end of the village to the other. Again this is extremely unlikely and totally impractical. Any smuggler would have to arrange for an occupant of all the houses to be present & ready to pass goods from one house to another - and that is assuming every house would have some kind of hatch to pass things from one house to the other.. It would be an extremely slow event and of course would fail completely if one or more occupants were absent from home. There is also the additional risk that if the Revenue men did a search every house in the chain it would likely have some contraband still in it to be passed to the next house. In the 1700s village it would be much more practical to send someone up the bank and keep watch for the customs/revenue men and give warning to those further down the village..
A number of house owners over the years have said they've discovered blocked up holes in walls and claimed these were used for smuggling These are blocked up windows rendered unusable when the adjoining property was extended upwards, therefore blocking off the light to the the next door property. Planning laws weren't quite what they are now!.
Likewise a number of people carrying out renovations have discovered below their floors large chambers or rooms often with no obvious entrance/exit. These were almost certainly normal cellars and simply used as a cold store for normal perishable goods and longs since fallen into disuse. Cellars are a common enojugh feature in many houses elsewhere.
These and other tunnels are often claimed as smuggler's tunnels without considering any other purpose for their existence. The ones I've seen or actually been in, appear totally impractical for that use. There's a Sutcliffe photograph of Bay taken from the scaur / beach area showing several houses with narrow wooden shoots going over the cliff and exiting onto the beach. These were simply wood or metal shoots for for getting rid of sewerage and or other waste as are the many other 'smugglers' tunnels discovered during building work.
Likewise here is a similar smugglers tunnel leading from the basement of the Cutty Sark pub in Whitby and other houses, to the harbour . At high tides any tunnel below street level would be subject to flooding. And of course that means you could not enter it from the harbour side either. And of course if it entered the harbour, anyone would be able to see it and of course know about it’s existence - including the revenue/customs men. Whats the point of having a smugglers tunnell that could not be used when the tide was in and couldn't be used when it was out because the entrance would be obvious to anyone looking into the harbour.
Aside from the impractical use of such small tunnels for smuggling purposes we must also consider the extreme difficulties of constructing these tunnels and hiding their construction from the Revenue men, let alone getting permission from other house owners to tunnel under their property.
Smuggling in the British Isles - A history, by Richard Platt.
A History of Robin Hood's Bay, by Barrie Farnill, published by the NYMNP
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