Yorks Ravenscar

About trip

Time: 3 Hours Terrain: Moderate Description: Visitors to Ravenscar, known locally as 'Bay Town', can be forgiven if they note a certain unfinished atmosphere about the place. This is because Ravenscar is a holiday resort that began as a speculative venture and was never quite finished. Once there were grandiose ideas of building another Scarborough here, but the unstable geology of the area and the resulting undermining of the sea cliffs made large-scale building a hazardous proposition. This is an area of complex geology, mostly from the Jurassic Period of about 160 million years ago. Numerous fault lines and weak strata have left the surrounding land and coast in a state of constant flux. As you walk along the bed of the abandoned Yorkshire Coast Railway you will be conscious of this movement, which shows itself prominently in sudden slopes, far steeper than any track gradient.