Last Updated on October 16, 2023

Relax at Wrea Head Hall, the perfect country house base to discover magnificent moorlands and the Scarborough seaside.

If you’re a city dweller, like me, when it comes to planning a short break away the dilemma is often: coast or country?  The delightful truth is that in Britain you can have both!  With our glorious coastline you are never more than 85 miles from the sea. The more accurate question is: “how do you like your coast?”. For me, it’s sensational seascapes, beautiful beaches history and heritage, fab food, wonderful walking. I found all this, and more, on the Yorkshire Coast.

Stretching south from Saltburn to Scalby Mills (just north of Scarborough) lie 36 miles of Heritage Coast. Stick a pin in the map and a visit to any of the vast bays and beaches or pretty fishing villages will leave you revived and refreshed:  Staithes, with its artistic heritage, Runswick Bay with its award-winning beach, Sandsend and its long beach-walk to Whitby harbour and picturesque Robin’s Hood Bay, the ultimate destination for those following Wainwright’s famous Coast to Coast walk.

Inland from the coast is the vast North York Moors National Park an area of high moorland and green dales.  Miles of footpaths and ancient trails criss-cross through the thick heather revealing wide-open skies and broad vistas.  An official Dark Sky Reserve, (one of only 18 in the world) the Moors is one of the best places in the country to see stars, and there have been fine sightings of the Northern Lights in recent years.

To understand how this awesome landscape came about, take a trip to Danby to the excellent visitor centre (art gallery and café included!).  As well as the geological story, you’ll learn of how the now deserted moorland was once a centre of industrial commerce, the Klondike of its time, with communities sprouting up like mushrooms in the search for rich minerals and a hard-earned living.

All roads eventually lead to the sea and, following the discovery of “medicinal water” in 1626, visitors from across the country have travelled to Scarborough Spa to enjoy Britain’s first, longest-established, seaside resort.  A popular destination with country aristocracy and wealthy Londoners in the 17^th and 18^th centuries and a family-favourite in the years since, Scarborough today continues to offer an eclectic mix of attractions guaranteed to entertain and impress.

The ruins of Scarborough Castle are perched high above the town on a headland that divides the two huge south and north bays. An excellent audio tour takes you through the site’s 3,000 years of occupation, giving an indication of the castle’s strategic and historic importance.

The old town is a maze of twisting streets huddled underneath the castle’s walls and around the bustling, working harbour.  Here the journey from sea to plate is very short.  Spend time walking the harbourside and the fish you see being unloaded from colourful boats will soon be served across the road at one of Scarborough’s excellent restaurants and cafes.

The Golden Grid has been serving delicious dishes for over a century.  Local lobster is a house speciality, the fish soups are excellent and the fish and chips are, of course, particularly popular.  If you’ve space for dessert there’s ice cream, cake and coffee aplenty along the seafront.  Pop back to the 1950s at Alonzi’s Harbour Bar, a “milk bar” where the same family have been creating knickerbocker glories for 70 years.

Beyond the marina and the harbour, a stroll along the South Bay will take you past family amusement arcades and shop fronts bursting with buckets, spades and other such essential beach equipment.  At the southern end, you’ll find the Rotunda Museum, the first purpose-built in the world, designed by William Smith, the “father of geology” to showcase the unique features of Yorkshire’s dinosaur coast.

A short walk away is the famous Scarborough Spa, today an entertainment and conference venue offering a packed programme of performances throughout the year. It’s also home to the UK’s last remaining professional seaside orchestra who entertain deckchair seated audiences throughout the summer months.  Scarborough is also home to the SJT, the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Sir Alan Ayckbourn’s “home” theatre, where he has premiered most of his plays.

The main town is on a hill set back from the beachfront, (save your legs by taking one of two old funiculars) and here you’ll find a good selection of independent shops, tourist accommodation and an agreeable mixture of architectural styles, evidence of the town’s development. The attractive Crescent features some fine mansions one of which is now home to Scarborough’s fine art collection and featuring fabulous seascapes and excellent portraits of past visitors from leading artists.

As well as a stunning beach, the North Bay area features a great collection of visitor attractions: genteel Peasholm Park, Japanese-style gardens complete with lake and dragon pedalos. The much-loved North Bay Heritage Railway also features lakeside attractions including a vintage water chute and water walking balls. Yorkshire has its very own seal hospital at Sea Life Scarborough.

The Bronte sisters loved Scarborough (Anne is buried in St Mary’s Church near the castle), but Charlotte was said to be a bigger fan of its little sister, Filey.  More sedate and less commercialised than Scarborough, Filey’s award-winning beach and bay can hold their own and the rows of park benches in the pretty Crescent Gardens are strong evidence that this is a very pleasant place to pass some time.

If you are to return to the daily grind truly refreshed and revived, a really comfortable base to explore from is essential.  Wrea Head Hall Hotel, located on the edge of the Moors at the outskirts of Scarborough, proves just such a place. Once home to a wealthy Victorian industrialist, Gothic-inspired Wrea Head Hall now offers a comfortable country house experience of great food, top-drawer accommodation and welcoming hospitality from an excellent team.

This independently-owned, child-free zone offers 24 rooms and suites located within the lovely Mansion or nearby Carriage House. Lovingly renovated, the public spaces combine seamlessly the best of modern comfort with the original features which make these houses so special.  Each room has been individually and tastefully decorated and a happy marriage of traditional and contemporary colours, furnishings and fittings create a truly restful environment.  Wrea Head Hall feels like a home and, whilst you’re staying, it feels like your home.

Hospitality is the name of the game here.  Country house style, guests gather in the bar before dinner to choose from a very reasonably priced drinks menu.  Friendly bar staff cheerfully suggest a cocktail to suit your mood, whilst the restaurant team prepare your table.

Wrea Head Hall aims to provide guests with an exceptional dining experience during their stay.  As you would expect from an hotel of this quality, menus feature locally sourced produce prepared and served with style in the lovely dining room or library.  Everything on the menu sounds so good it really is deliciously difficult to make a choice.

I finally plumped for cured citrus salmon with lime jelly and grapefruit sorbet and was very happy I did. Prettily presented, this was a surprising combination of meltingly good salmon, a zing of lime and cleansing sorbet which was both satisfying and refreshing.  What a great way to start a meal!

Following fish with fish might be frowned on by some, but hey, when fab fish is on offer, my motto is Go for It!  So, a trio of chalk stream trout it was: a grilled trout fillet, trout rillette and a trout fishcake drizzled with salsa rossa were a real treat.  (The rillette was served on a warm avocado, a method I’ll definitely be repeating chez moi!).

You will groan when you read the dessert menu because you will not have booked a long enough stay to do it justice.  Clementine posset, iced banana parfait (with caramelised banana and caramel sauce), mango cheesecake with lime curd and coconut ice cream: your inner child will struggle with your sensible adult.  For me, the summer fruit jelly with iced meringue Chantilly with a Pimms shot on the side seemed to satisfy both!

After a good night’s sleep in one of Wrea Head’s super-comfortable beds, enjoy a perfectly cooked breakfast whilst you plan your day.  If you like your coast rugged, your beaches and bays under big skies, moorlands morphing into lush green valleys, great food and fascinating stories of people and places, then the Yorkshire coast is the place for you and it will certainly keep you busy.

Jenny was a guest of Discover Yorkshire Coast and the Wrea Head Hall Country House Hotel.

You’ll find Wrea Head Hall at Barmoor Lane, Scalby, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, YO13 OPB

Tel: 01723 371190 https://wreaheadhall.co.uk 

For further information and advice when planning your trip to the Yorkshire Coast, talk to the friendly and dedicated team at the Tourism Bureau on 01723 383636.

Alternatively, you can find everything you might need to plan your trip at www.discoveryorkshirecoast.com, www.yorkshire.com or www.northyorkmoors.org.uk/visiting.

For more ideas on where you could base yourself to explore the Yorkshire Coast check out Jenny’s feature on Raithwaite Sandsend.