About
Robin Hood's Bay Museum sits on Fisherhead, on the south side of a village that tumbles down a ravine to the sea in a manner that no photograph quite prepares you for. Reaching it means walking down steep cobbled passages and flights of steps between houses stacked almost on top of one another, and that approach is itself an introduction to the subject, because the village's extraordinary layout is the product of the two activities the museum documents: fishing, and the large-scale smuggling that made this stretch of the North Yorkshire coast notorious.
By the eighteenth century Robin Hood's Bay was among the busiest smuggling communities in England. Its position, tucked into a bay beneath high cliffs and served by a maze of alleys, yards and interconnected houses, made it close to impossible for revenue officers to police. Contemporary accounts describe goods passing from the shore to the top of the village through cellars and connecting passages without ever emerging into the open, and while such stories accumulate embellishment, the physical fabric of the place makes the essential claim entirely plausible. The museum sets out what is documented and distinguishes it from what is legend, which is a more interesting exercise than simply retelling the tales.
Fishing is the other half of the story. The bay supported a substantial fleet of cobles, the distinctive flat-bottomed clinker-built boats of the north east coast designed to be launched from and beached on open shore, and the museum covers the boats, the gear, the work and the families who did it. Coastal erosion runs through everything: the sea has taken streets and houses from the foot of the village over the centuries, and the sea wall built in the 1970s is the reason there is still a village to visit.
The museum also covers the celebrated geology of the surrounding coast, part of the Yorkshire Jurassic sequence and a productive fossil locality, along with the ironstone and alum industries and the village's photographic record. It is run by volunteers, admission is free, and it opens on a pattern that varies considerably through the year and depends on volunteer availability, so checking before setting off down the hill is a sensible precaution.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- Check the calendar before you go. Opening varies month by month, from weekends only in March and October to every day in July and August, and everything depends on volunteers being available.
- Hours are noon until four throughout the season, which is a short window. Do not leave the museum until the end of the afternoon.
- Park at the top of the village. The lower village is not accessible by car, and the walk down is steep and cobbled.
- Remember the climb back up. The return from the museum to the car park is a genuinely hard ascent and catches out a lot of visitors.
- The museum is not accessible to wheelchair users and is difficult for anyone with limited mobility, because of both the steps and the approach.
- Visit at low tide if you can, so that you can walk out onto the scar afterwards where the fossils and the wave-cut platform are exposed.
- Admission is free, so it costs nothing to look in while you are down in the lower village.
- Talk to the stewards. Their knowledge of the village, its families and which smuggling stories hold up is the best thing about the visit.
Highlights
The Smuggling Trade
Robin Hood's Bay was among the most active smuggling communities in eighteenth-century England, landing spirits, tobacco and tea beneath cliffs that made interception difficult and distributing them through a village whose alleys, yards and interconnected cellars defeated the revenue service. The museum presents the documented record alongside the accumulated folklore and is careful to distinguish between them, which is more valuable than uncritical retelling.
Court records, seizure accounts and the physical evidence of the village fabric together make a convincing case that the reality was extensive enough not to need embellishment.
Cobles and the Fishing Fleet
The bay supported a substantial fleet of cobles, the distinctive high-bowed, flat-sterned clinker-built boats developed along the north east coast for launching from and landing on open beaches where no harbour exists. The museum covers their construction and handling, the lines and pots the men worked, and the shore-based labour of baiting, mending and processing that occupied whole families.
Cobles are among the most characteristic craft in British boatbuilding, and understanding why they are shaped as they are explains a great deal about this coast.
Coastal Erosion and the Sea Wall
The sea has repeatedly taken buildings from the foot of Robin Hood's Bay, and photographs and records document streets and houses lost over the centuries as the soft cliffs retreated. The sea wall constructed in the 1970s halted the process and is the reason the lower village survives at all. This is the museum's most quietly dramatic material, showing a community in a continuous defensive relationship with the sea, and it has obvious contemporary resonance along a coast still eroding rapidly to the south.
The Village Layout
Robin Hood's Bay descends a steep ravine in a dense stack of cottages linked by narrow passages, yards and flights of steps, with houses built into and over one another in ways that make property boundaries almost unintelligible. The museum explains how this developed, and why it suited both fishing and smuggling so well.
Understanding the plan transforms a walk through the village from a picturesque stroll into a reading of a working landscape built for launching boats and moving contraband unobserved.
Collections
The collection documents Robin Hood's Bay and the parish of Fylingdales. Maritime holdings cover the coble fishing fleet, gear, boatbuilding and the shore-based work of fishing families, along with material on shipwreck and lifesaving. The smuggling trade of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is a major theme, presented with the documented record distinguished from accumulated folklore.
Other holdings cover coastal erosion and the loss of buildings to the sea, the geology and fossils of the surrounding Jurassic coast, the alum and ironstone industries of the district, and the parish's rural history. A substantial photographic archive records the village, its boats and its people from the late nineteenth century.
Smugglers and Revenue Men
The contraband trade that made the bay notorious, and the documentary evidence behind the legends.
Fishing and the Coble
The bay's fishing fleet, the distinctive north east coble and the working life of fishing families.
The Sea and the Village
Coastal erosion, buildings lost to the sea, the sea wall and the geology of the surrounding coast.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.