HISTORY – Old Redcar An Unpublished Leaf

Accreditation the Redcar and Saltburn News 07/03/1873

AN UNPUBLISHED LEAF IN THE HISTORY OF OLD REDCAR

     A correspondent sends us the following extract from an unpublished manuscript on the above subject: – The site of old Redcar was to the east, near to the first water race. A few years ago I traced the foundations of the cottages and the length of the garths, the walls had been about three feet thick and composed of mud and stone. (Let it be understood it was not the foundations of the Fisherman’s Square pulled down after the cholera visited it.) But a little further east I had been told by an old woman that when she was a girl (and that must be at least 90 years ago) there were some of the walls blown bare, but afterwards covered by the sand for many years. They again came into sight when the hills were lowered about the time the Fisherman’s row was built; they are now gradually wearing away. The cobles landed at the first water race. At a more remote time still there was a ferry across from Saltscar to the main land called ‘Jenny Liske’s Ferry.’ My authority on this subject was the late Old Willie Thompson (whose veracity none who knew him will doubt); and his mother used to tell of taking her knitting – when a girl – to the ferry to wait for the cobles coming in. Willie himself had shrimped when a boy across to ‘Sodscar’ many times. There is a place behind East Scar called ‘Dead Man’s Hole.’ When the sea is calm you may perceive in the deep water what looks like the ruins of a church. It may only be the debris from falling cliffs, but still we know that there had been a previous church at Redcar, the deeds being found at York when the present one was erected fifty years ago. If the ruins in the sea are not the ancient church, can anyone inform me where the site is.”

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dean July 27, 2011 History General