Wrea Head

From the Clifton Hotel, high on the headland above the North Sea, Scarborough Castle occupies one of the most dramatic castle sites in the country and boasts over 2,500 years of turbulent history.

Before the castle was built, this natural fortress was favoured by prehistoric settlers before serving as a Roman signal station and Viking haven. It has endured sieges from medieval kings and Civil War armies, and German naval bombardment during WWII. Now you can climb to the battlement viewing platforms for dramatic coastline views, and take tea in the 18th-century Master Gunner’s House.

This is an ideal day out for people staying at Scarborough hotels, who wish to capture the heritage of Scarborough.

The stunning Rotunda Museum in Scarborough overlooks the South Bay and was built in 1829. It is one of the best geological museums in the area and amongst the oldest purpose built museums in Britain that still fulfils its original role. The museum was built to illustrate the ideas of William Smith – the pioneering ‘Father of English Geology’ whose work established that geological strata could be identified and correlated using the fossils they contain.

Easily the best place in England to see, hear and smell seabirds! More than 200,000 birds (from April to August) make the cliffs seem alive – with adults bringing food to their nests, or young chicks making their first faltering flights.

With huge numbers to watch, beginners can easily learn the difference between gannets, guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes and fulmars. The easily recognisable puffins (here between April and July) are always a delight. Specially-created cliff top viewpoints are wheelchair accessible with care.

To be found in peaceful North Yorkshire, the Walled Garden is a stunningly beautiful contemporary garden, quite unlike any other. Open to the public for the first time in 2004, people visit from all over the world and it has been received with great acclaim.

In 2006 The House and Garden were featured in the television series ‘Hidden Treasure Houses’ on Five. Open for just one month a year, and sitting in its own, more traditional gardens, Scampston Hall is one of the finest country houses in Yorkshire. Lovingly restored by the Legards, it is a family home and contains many fine works of art, furniture and china.

Newly opened for 2008, the Woodland Walk provides visitors with the opportunity to visit the traditional gardens around the house including the Rock Garden, the Woodland Garden and the ‘Capability’ Brown lakes and park.

Just off the A64, between York and Scarborough, Scampton Walled Gardens is easy to find.

In 1947, the Council’s Libraries and Museums Committee decided to create an Art Gallery in Scarborough at Crescent House.

Originally, the Gallery did not occupy the long gallery, which currently shows eighteenth and nineteenth century oil paintings. This space formed part of the Caretaker’s quarters as well as the rooms in the basement area which are now Crescent Arts. The Caretaker was responsible for the three buildings on the Crescent: Wood End, a Natural History Museum, and Londesborough Lodge, administrative offices for the Council and the Art Gallery.

Scarborough Art Gallery did not have much of a collection of fine art when it first opened. Though the Scarborough Corporation already owned the Sir Meredith Whitaker collection, which came in 1937, two works by John Jackson, and watercolours by HB Carter.

The original exhibition Scarborough through Three Centuries occupied the whole available display space at that time. Reports describe how the exhibition was hung over both floors and works by Francis Nicholson filled a whole room whilst HB Carter was represented by ‘more than a dozen works’. The journalist at the time noted that it was John Piper’s watercolours that provided ‘a striking contrast to the strictly conventional note of the exhibition as a whole.’ The exhibition was shown for a relatively short time, from 17 November 1947 to 4 January 1948. Perhaps the reason for this was because major works were borrowed from the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The Gallery has since become well known for showing a variety of national touring exhibitions as well as originating major new shows.

Scarborough Art Gallery occupies two floors of a nineteenth-century Italianate Villa on Scarborough’s beautiful Crescent. With views of South Bay from its first floor, the Gallery is an ideal location to show a variety of historic and contemporary visual art. Expect to see high-quality national touring exhibitions and originated shows, as well as a fascinating historic art collection.