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A brief history of Scarborough (adapted from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarborough,_North_Yorkshire )

The ancient origin of Scarborough - The Romans and Vikings

In the 4th century, there had briefly been a Roman signal station on Scarborough headland and there is evidence of much earlier Stone Age and Bronze Age settlements on the headland? A Roman signal station was built on a cliff-top location overlooking the North Sea. It was one of a chain of signal stations, built to warn of sea-raiders. Coins found at the site show that it was occupied from c. AD 370 until the early fifth century.

In 2021 an excavation at a housing development in Eastfield, Scarborough, revealed a Roman luxury villa, religious sanctuary, or combination of both. The building layout is unique in Britain and extends over an area of about the size of two tennis courts. It included a bathhouse and a cylindrical tower with rooms radiating from it. The buildings were “designed by the highest-quality architects in northern Europe in the era and constructed by the finest craftsmen.” Historic England described the finds as “one of the most important Roman discoveries in the past decade.

The town was probably founded around 966 AD as Skarðaborg [ˈskɑrðɑˌborɡ] by Thorgils Skarthi, a Viking raider, though there is no archaeological evidence to support this. The origin of this belief is a fragment of an Icelandic Saga. A new settlement was burned to the ground by a rival band of Vikings under Tosti (Tostig Godwinson), Lord of Falsgrave, and Harald III of Norway. The destruction and massacre meant that very little remained to be recorded in the Domesday survey of 1085. The original inland village of Falsgrave was also Anglo-Saxon rather than Viking.


Development in the Medieval Period

Scarborough commercially developed under King Henry II, who built an Angevin stone castle on the headland and granted the town charters in 1155 and 1163, permitting a market on the sands and establishing rule by burgesses.

Edward II granted Scarborough Castle to his favourite, Piers Gaveston. The castle was subsequently besieged by forces led by the barons Percy, Warenne, Clifford and Pembroke. Gaveston was captured and taken to Oxford and thence to Warwick Castle for execution.

In 1318, the town was burnt by the Scots, under Sir James Douglas following the Capture of Berwick upon Tweed.

In the Middle Ages, Scarborough Fair, permitted in a royal charter of 1253, held a six-week trading festival attracting merchants from all over Europe. It ran from Assumption Day, 15 August, until Michaelmas Day, 29 September. The fair continued to be held for 500 years, from the 13th to the 18th century, and is commemorated in the song Scarborough Fair:

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
—parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.

Scarborough and its castle changed hands seven times between Royalists and Parliamentarians during the English Civil War of the 1640s, enduring two lengthy and violent sieges. Following the civil war, much of the town lay in ruins, but all was no lost ... !!!


The development of Scarborough as a seaside resort - that continues to this day

In 1626, Mrs Thomasin Farrer discovered a stream of acidic water running from one of the cliffs to the south of the town. This gave birth to Scarborough Spa, and Dr Robert Wittie's book about the spa waters published in 1660 attracted a flood of visitors to the town.

Scarborough Spa became Britain's first seaside resort, though the first rolling bathing machines were not reported on the sands until 1735. It was a popular getaway destination for the wealthy of London, such as the bookseller Andrew Millar and his family. Their son Andrew junior died there in 1750.

The coming of the Scarborough–York railway in 1845 increased the tide of visitors. Scarborough railway station claims a record for the world's longest platform seat.

From the 1880s until the First World War, Scarborough was one of the regular destinations for The Bass Excursions, when fifteen trains would take between 8,000 and 9,000 employees of Bass's Burton brewery on an annual trip to the seaside.

The are many visitor attractions in Scarborough including the Castle, Parish Church, Museum and Art Gallery, narrow gauge railway and of course two long beaches.