Kettleness, is a hamlet in the county of

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in Northern England.The Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority areas of City of York, York and North Yorkshire (district), North Yorkshire are in Yorkshire and t ...

, England. The settlement only consists of half-a-dozen houses, 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, with houses rebuilt slightly further inland. Historically, the hamlet has had an alum works, a jet mining industry and ironstone workings. The hamlet used to have a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

on the

Whitby, Redcar and Middlesbrough Union Railway The Whitby, Redcar and Middlesbrough Union Railway (WRMU), the Whitby–Loftus Line, was a railway line in North Yorkshire, England, built between 1871 and 1886, running from Loftus on the Yorkshire coast to the Esk at Whitby, and connecting ...

, that was open between 1883 and 1958. Kettleness is recorded within the parish of Lythe for census purposes. From 1974 to 2023 it was part of the

Borough of Scarborough The Borough of Scarborough () was a non-metropolitan district with borough status in North Yorkshire, England. In addition to the town of Scarborough, it covered a large stretch of the coast of Yorkshire, including Whitby and Filey. It bordere ...

, it is now administered by the unitary

North Yorkshire Council North Yorkshire Council, known between 1974 and 2023 as North Yorkshire County Council, is the local authority for the non-metropolitan county of North Yorkshire, England. Since 2023 the council has been a unitary authority, being a county coun ...

History

Kettleness is not mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

, but the neighbouring settlement of Goldsborough is, and both were in the

Wapentake A hundred is an administrative division that is geographically part of a larger region. It was formerly used in England, Wales, some parts of the United States, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and in Cumberland County in the British Colony of ...

of Langbaurgh. The hamlet takes its name from the nearby headland ''Kettle Ness'', but the hamlet is stylised as ''Kettleness'' on mapping. The name is thought to derive from

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

, 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 Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...

word for headland. Kettle Ness is at the eastern end of

Runswick Bay Runswick Bay is a bay in North Yorkshire, England. It is also the name of a village located on the western edge of the bay (although the village is sometimes shortened to Runswick on UK road signs). It is north of Whitby, and close to the vil ...

, and the cliffs rise to over above sea level. The present hamlet was built in the 1830s after the collapse of the former village into the sea in 1829. The hamlet is north of the

A174 road The A174 is a major road in North Yorkshire, England. It runs from the A19 road at Thornaby-on-Tees, across South Teesside and down the Yorkshire Coast to Whitby. The A174 is the coastal route between Teesside and Whitby; the alternative road, ...

, north east of

Whitby Whitby is a seaside town, port and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. It is on the Yorkshire Coast at the mouth of the River Esk, North Yorkshire, River Esk and has a maritime, mineral and tourist economy. From the Middle Ages, Whitby ...

and south east of

Guisborough Guisborough ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the borough of Redcar and Cleveland, North Yorkshire, England. It lies north of the North York Moors National Park. Roseberry Topping, midway between the town and Great Ayton, is a landmark i ...

. A chapel-of-ease to the

Church of St Oswald, Lythe The Church of St Oswald, Lythe, is the parish church for the village of Lythe, west, north west of Whitby in North Yorkshire, England. The church is at the top of Lythe Bank (the western end) and is just east of the village on the A174 road. A ...

, was built in 1872 for £300. The building was designed in the

Early English style English Gothic is an architectural style that flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century. The style was most prominently used in the construction of cathedrals and churches. Gothic architecture's defining features are pointed a ...

and constructed from Aislaby Stone (a local sandstone) with a

Welsh slate The existence of a slate industry in Wales is attested since the Roman period, when slate was used to roof the fort at Segontium, now Caernarfon. The slate industry grew slowly until the early 18th century, then rapidly during the Industrial ...

roof; most buildings have the distinctive red pantile roofs that the area is renowned for. Whilst the hamlet is in the ecclesiastical parish of Lythe, as well as the civil parish of Lythe, the chapel has since been converted into a recording studio. The hamlet used to have a

opened in 1883, on the Whitby, Redcar and Middlesbrough Union Railway between and

Whitby West Cliff railway station Whitby West Cliff railway station was a railway station on the Whitby Redcar and Middlesbrough Union Railway. It was opened on 3 December 1883, to serve the West Cliff area of the town of Whitby, North Yorkshire, England. It was one of two stat ...

. This served the nearby village of Goldsborough too, and in 1911, the North Eastern Railway estimated the local population to be 54 people. Both the station and railway line were closed in May 1958 due to the high costs of maintenance on the tunnels and bridges. The former station building is now a residential activity centre used by

scouting Scouting or the Scout Movement is a youth social movement, movement which became popularly established in the first decade of the twentieth century. It follows the Scout method of informal education with an emphasis on practical outdoor activi ...

and outward bounds groups. During the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, a field to the east of the hamlet was used by the

Royal Naval Air Service The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was the air arm of the Royal Navy, under the direction of the Admiralty (United Kingdom), Admiralty's Air Department, and existed formally from 1 July 1914 to 1 April 1918, when it was merged with the British ...

as a refuelling point for aircraft transiting up the east coast. 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. After the war, the site was used as a

coastguard A coast guard or coastguard is a maritime security organization of a particular country. The term embraces wide range of responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with customs and security duties to ...

station.

Geology and industry

As at other locations on the Cleveland coast, the underlying geology has an abundance of mineral resources. The

Upper Lias The Lias Group or Lias is a lithostratigraphic unit (a sequence of rock strata) found in a large area of western Europe, including the British Isles, the North Sea, the Low Countries and the north of Germany. It consists of marine limestones, sh ...

consists of alum shales, jet rock, cement shales, and ironstone. The headland was previously the site of the original village and the

alum An alum () is a type of chemical compound, usually a hydrated double salt, double sulfate salt (chemistry), salt of aluminium with the general chemical formula, formula , such that is a valence (chemistry), monovalent cation such as potassium ...

works, which started quarrying . 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. At its peak, between 1805 and 1817, the workings were outputting of alum per year. As it took of shale to make of alum, the headland was quarried extensively, and the workings caused the original settlement to collapse into the sea on 17 December 1829. 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. 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. 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. 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". Ironstone was shipped to the

Wylam Wylam is a village and civil parish in the county of Northumberland, England. It is located about west of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is famous for the being the birthplace of George Stephenson, one of the early railway pioneers. George Stephen ...

furnaces of

Losh, Wilson and Bell Losh, Wilson and Bell, later Bells, Goodman, then Bells, Lightfoot and finally Bell Brothers, was a leading Northeast England manufacturing company, founded in 1809 by the partners William Losh, Thomas Wilson (poet), Thomas Wilson, and Thomas B ...

. The other mine was located west of the hamlet and operated between 1910 and 1915, with the ironstone being forwarded to

Skinningrove Skinningrove is a village in the civil parish of Loftus, in the Redcar and Cleveland district, in the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, England. Its name is of Old Norse etymology and is thought to mean ''skinners' grove or pit''. Demogra ...

Ironworks by rail. The geology and abundance of fossils have attracted many to this area. One of the most notable finds was the skeleton of a

plesiosaur The Plesiosauria or plesiosaurs are an Order (biology), order or clade of extinct Mesozoic marine reptiles, belonging to the Sauropterygia. Plesiosaurs first appeared in the latest Triassic Period (geology), Period, possibly in the Rhaetian st ...

in 1883.

Legends and culture

Kettleness is on a trail established between Whitby and the hamlet with tales of the preternatural, some imagined and some claimed as real, such as a black dog (known as a

barghest In Northern English folklore, the Barghest or Barguest is a mythical monstrous black dog with large teeth and claws; This in turn cites: * Wirt Sikes, ''British Goblins'' (1880) *''Notes and Queries'', first series, ii. 51. *Joseph Ritson, ''Fa ...

), which supposedly influenced

Bram Stoker Abraham Stoker (8 November 1847 – 20 April 1912), better known by his pen name Bram Stoker, was an Irish novelist who wrote the 1897 Gothic horror novel ''Dracula''. The book is widely considered a milestone in Vampire fiction, and one of t ...

to put a black dog in his novel,

Dracula ''Dracula'' is an 1897 Gothic fiction, Gothic horror fiction, horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. The narrative is Epistolary novel, related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist and opens ...

. Also in the book, Mina watches the sunset over the headland of Kettleness from the town of Whitby. In the 1950s, a vicar supposedly met the barghest that haunted the area around Kettleness, and used holy water to banish the spirit. The trail was launched in 2015 and covers several waypoints along the way into Whitby, following the route of the

Cleveland Way The Cleveland Way is a National Trail in the historic area of Cleveland in North Yorkshire, Northern England. It runs between Helmsley and the Brigg at Filey, skirting the North York Moors National Park. History Development of the Cleve ...

References

Sources

External links

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, clockwise =

Sandsend Sandsend is a small fishing village, near to Whitby in North Yorkshire, England. It forms part of the civil parish of Lythe. It is the birthplace of fishing magnate George Pyman. Originally two villages, Sandsend and East Row, the united San ...