Robin Hood's Bay: Smugglers, Tunnels and Ghost Stories
In the 18th century this cliffside Yorkshire village was at the heart of one of the north-east coast's biggest smuggling networks, said to be linked house to house by hidden passages. Its ghost stories may have started with the smugglers themselves.
Robin Hood’s Bay is a fishing village packed into a steep, narrow ravine on the North Yorkshire coast, about 6 miles south of Whitby and 15 miles north of Scarborough. Locals call it “Bay Town”, or just “Bay”. In the 18th century it was at the heart of one of the most powerful smuggling networks on the north-east coast. The village is said to be laced with hidden passages, and a local saying claims that a bale of silk could pass from the harbour to the clifftop without ever leaving the houses.
The smuggling is real history. The ghosts are harder to pin down. Many of the village’s ghost stories may have been started by the smugglers themselves, to keep people indoors on the nights when cargo came ashore.
History of Robin Hood’s Bay
The Village
The village sits in the parish of Fylingdales and lies within the North York Moors National Park. Its oldest streets run down a deep, steep cleft to the shore. The houses are crowded together, joined by narrow alleys and flights of steps. Many of them were built between about 1650 and 1750.
The Name
No one knows how the village got its name. It is very doubtful that Robin Hood ever had anything to do with it. The name is old, though. John Leland wrote “Robin Hoode Baye” in 1536, and the form “Robyn Hoodis Baye” is recorded in 1544. Local legends offer reasons, such as Robin Hood driving off pirates or Danish raiders for the Abbot of Whitby. A ballad called “The Noble Fisherman” puts Robin Hood on this coast, but it is known only from the 17th century and was probably made up to explain the name.
Fishing
Fishing and farming were the village’s first trades. Fishing peaked in the mid-19th century, when catches were carried over the moorland tracks to Pickering and York. It declined in the late 1800s. Tourism now provides most of the village’s income.
The Smuggling Years
Smuggling was widespread on the Yorkshire coast in the late 18th century. Britain’s wars in Europe had driven import duties very high, so goods such as tea, gin, rum, brandy and tobacco could be sold at a large profit if they were landed in secret. Robin Hood’s Bay was well placed for it. It had a sheltered landing, a maze of buildings and paths up the cliff, and moorland roads leading inland.
Two clashes are on record. In 1773 three smuggling vessels outgunned two revenue cutters, the Mermaid and the Eagle, and chased them off. In 1779 there was a pitched battle in the village dock between smugglers and excise men over 200 casks of brandy and geneva and 15 bags of tea.
Local accounts add colour. One story tells how, in 1779, revenue officers fell asleep in the cellar of the Fisherman’s Arms after drinking from a haul of gin and brandy they had just seized. Locals tipped off a smuggling gang, who stole the cargo back. Women were said to hide silk wrapped around their waists and spirits in animal bladders under their skirts. Excise men in the lanes were said to have had boiling water poured on them from upper windows.
The trade had support well above the fishing families. The Farsyde family of Thorpe Hall, near the village, are believed to have been deeply involved. Many local people saw the smugglers as heroes rather than criminals, as the historian Patricia Labistour describes in her book “A Rum Do!”.
The Tunnels
The village is famous for its hidden passages. It is said that many houses had “smuggler’s holes” under the floors, and that cellars and houses were linked so goods could move unseen. The silk saying sums it up.
How much of this is true is hard to say. Some of it is real. A culvert called the King’s Beck tunnel runs under the Bay Hotel, and timbers in it are thought to be old floorboards that may once have let goods pass between buildings. But the idea of a full network linking every house is a reputation more than a mapped fact.
The Decline of Smuggling
The trade faded in the early 19th century. Duties on tea were cut sharply in 1784, which made tea smuggling far less worthwhile. After the Napoleonic Wars the government also cut duties more widely and tightened enforcement. In 1822 the Coastguard was founded, and preventive stations went up along the coast. By the middle of the century large-scale smuggling had largely ended.
The Hauntings
Where the Stories Come From
There is an old idea that smugglers spread ghost stories on purpose. A haunted lane or a phantom on the beach was a good way to keep curious people indoors on a landing night. Historians of the Yorkshire coast note that many local ghost stories here relate to smuggling, and that some may have begun with the smugglers themselves, playing on the fears of their neighbours.
That makes the stories hard to judge. What follows is what we could actually trace.
Headless Bert
One local tale concerns a miserly farmer called Bert Marshall. Every Friday, the story goes, he walked along the Whitby to Scarborough railway line to the Windmill Inn, about five miles away. One drunken night he was knocked over, lost his false teeth on the line, and was killed by a train as he stooped to pick them up. His headless ghost is said to walk the old track on moonless nights, and the clank of his false teeth can be heard. The railway closed in 1965 and is now a path. The story has no date and no named witness.
The Boggle of Boggle Hole
Boggle Hole is a small cove just south of the village. Its name comes from the “boggle”, a northern dialect word for a hobgoblin. Boggles were said to be mischievous little people who lived in caves along the coast. They were also thought to heal, so mothers carried sick children to the cave in the hope of a cure. The cove later became a well-known landing place for smugglers, who hid their goods in its caves.
The Murdered Exciseman
Earlier versions of this page described a revenue officer whose throat was cut in Robin Hood’s Bay and whose ghost sits by the fire in the Dolphin. We could find no source for that story in the village.
The best-known version of the tale belongs somewhere else. The Saltersgate Inn, once called the Waggon and Horses, stood on the moors between Pickering and Whitby on a route the smugglers used. The legend says that a customs official found out about smuggling there and was murdered, and his body was buried beneath the fireplace. The fire was then kept burning, because his ghost would return if it ever went out. The inn has since been demolished.
Recent Reports
Recent sightings in the village itself are few and anecdotal. A local guide’s website has reader comments describing an older man seen locking a gate near the Laurel pub, who vanished in broad daylight, and black shadows and a frightened dog at a cottage. These are short, informal accounts, and none has been followed up.
We also checked the Paranormal Database, a large archive of UK ghost reports. It had no entry for Robin Hood’s Bay.
Notable Locations
The beach and dock are where the cargoes once came ashore. The dock was the scene of the 1779 fight. The Fisherman’s Arms building dates from 1680 and carries the story of the sleeping revenue men. The Bay Hotel, at the foot of the village, marks the eastern end of Alfred Wainwright’s Coast to Coast Walk, and the King’s Beck tunnel runs beneath it. Thorpe Hall, the Farsyde family home, still has what is said to be a smuggler’s cargo hold in its grounds. Boggle Hole lies a short walk south along the shore at low tide or along the Cleveland Way.
The Village Today
Robin Hood’s Bay is now mostly a place for visitors. People come for the coast, the old streets, the walks along the Cleveland Way and the fossils on the beach, which are rich in ammonites. Local ghost walks tell the smuggling stories. The village’s museum and guides cover the smuggling history in more detail.
Why Robin Hood’s Bay Feels Haunted
The village has the setting for a ghost story. Its alleys are dark and narrow, sea fog often rolls in, and its history is full of secrecy. It is easy to imagine figures with barrels on the steps at night.
There are also good reasons to be careful. Smugglers had every reason to invent ghosts. The tunnels are part fact, part legend. The tales that survive have no dates or named witnesses, and the most famous one belongs to an inn miles inland. The smuggling past is well recorded. The ghosts, so far, are not.
Sources
- Wikipedia, “Robin Hood’s Bay” (name, location, 1773 and 1779 incidents, fishing history)
- Hannah Thompson, “Robin Hood’s Bay: Smuggling, Ghosts and Listed Fish”, CITiZAN blog, November 13, 2021
- The Whitby Guide, “Robin Hood’s Bay Myths, Legends and Ghost Stories”
- The Paranormal Database, North Yorkshire entries (no Robin Hood’s Bay entry found, October 2026)
- Patricia Labistour, A Rum Do! (cited by CITiZAN above)