For three years in the late 1960s, I had the privilege of living in the tiny Yorkshire fishing village of Robin Hoods Bay. Leeds University’s Zoology Department had recently opened a state-of-the-art marine laboratory adjacent to the slipway used by local fishing boats. I was one of the first two PhD students (the other was Ray Seed) to occupy the lab to undertake our field studies from this base. Ray was studying mussels while my investigation was of dogwhelks, marine snails that were predators of mussels and other marine invertebrates. Both of us worked in all weathers in all seasons, in relative isolation in winter and bad weather, but causing bewilderment among visitors (locally called “grockles”) to the village in summer and public holidays.
On the opposite side of the slipway to the laboratory is a pub, the Bay Hotel, which became our watering hole (and where I sometimes worked as a barman during the tourist season). While conveniently close to the laboratory, the downside was the steep hill that had to be negotiated before we could bed down in our accommodation at the top of the village. In our first winter, evenings were sometimes spent in the pub, where we sat at the bar while the locals sat around the fireplace at the other end of the room. Ray and I chatted between ourselves. During the second winter, after a summer in which we had taken an interest in the villagers’ fishing activities and explained what we were doing, we were able to join the locals around the fire, but rarely participated in conversations. In the third winter, however, we not only sat among the locals, but were also allowed to join in the chatter. This felt as near to acceptance as we could hope for in this small community!
On 12 May 2022 Christine and I paid a visit to Robin Hoods Bay during a brief stay in Yorkshire. Sixty years after my sojourn there, I knew there would have been changes – in particular, I had heard that Leeds University had vacated the laboratory in 1982. I had also seen an internet photograph of the village showing a huge concrete wall along the coast to the north of the slipway.
Although we were visiting on a weekday, and out of the tourist season, the public car parks at the top of the hill were packed. Walking down the hill, narrow alleys leading away from the road were lined with the old cottages just as before. Most of the cottages looked in good repair, with small gardens decorated with an abundance of flowering plants. Some small shops sold provisions, but most were full of a variety of goods aimed at tourists. Down by the slipway, a few small boats, along with floating buoys visible out at sea, showed that small scale fishing still forms part of the village’s activities. The Bay Hotel and neighbouring post office survived and catered for residents and visitors, but the laboratory building had been rebuilt and converted into very basic visitor centre and museum. Its displays outlined the village’s history, notably documenting past shipwrecks and the coasts nefarious piracy and smuggling activities. There was no mention whatever that the building had once been an internationally acclaimed marine laboratory!
Through talking to shopkeepers, there was no recognition of family names that I recalled from my 1960s residence. Most of the well-kept cottages were now second homes owned by people from other towns. The Bay Hotel had changed hands several times since Cyril Leak employed me as a casual worker behind the bar.
A walk out on to the shale scaurs that were exposed at low tide revealed more changes that were less expected. During the time that Ray and I were working there, our study animals, mussels and dogwhelks, were superabundant. During our ¾ hour exploration of the scaurs during this visit, we could not find one single mussel and I could only find three dogwhelk shells, all of them empty. The scaurs were liberally populated by limpets and barnacles, the latter including vast numbers of recently settled youngsters, but even periwinkles were scarce, whereas in the 1960s at least three species inhabited the area, some in huge numbers.
Unfortunately, the incoming tide prevented us from walking to North Cheek. Access had been made more difficult by the deposition of large rocks at the base of some of the cliff faces to prevent erosion. Evidence of this was readily visible to the south of the village, where slips of mud and accompanying vegetation showed that the coast was receding rapidly in places. This showed the necessity of protecting the cliffs in the village, erosion of which would endanger houses and other structures, but it was a pity that the concrete wall that had been built was scenically so unattractive.
While a few Oystercatchers were feeding on the scaurs, as they had done in the 1960s, the cliff- breeding colony of Herring Gulls that had nested on the cliff towards North Cheek (and dive-bombed me as I walked past to my study area). However, Herring Gulls of various ages were roosting, feeding and fighting on the beach in front of the village.
A more concerning absentee from the cliffs was the Fulmar. In the 1960s scattered pairs nested all along the cliff from the village to North Cheek and beyond. Declines in Fulmar populations have been noted elsewhere on the Yorkshire coast, notably in the massive seabird colony on Bempton cliffs, about 25km south of Robin Hoods Bay. There, the decline has been attributed, at least in part, to birds being killed as a result of accumulations of plastic waste in their digestive systems.
Wild Bird Conservation 
A lovely and moving account (as is the Bempton one). I learnt what little I knew of shoreline invertebrates from very productive rock pools at Walton on Naze, Essex, in late 50s and 60s. Taking my own offspring there in 90s and ‘noughties’ I was so disappointed to see pools of water virtually bereft of life.
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That’s interesting Clive. I had wondered if the absence of mussels and dogwhelks might be related to beach changes resulting from massive erosion prevention schemes, but maybe it’s a more widespread phenomenon.
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