Next to the Blacksmiths Arms Inn, on the A171, which forms the village spine, the village smithy is still working. The pub is Grade II listed, around 250 years old, and owned by the Duchy of Lancaster; inside it divides into a subdued front lounge, a livelier rear bar and an oak-beamed restaurant. The kitchen sends out homemade steak pie, battered haddock, Whitby scampi, a Barnsley lamb chop and a sweet-potato, chickpea and spinach curry, with Yorkshire puddings and beef gravy alongside. Tetley Bitter and Theakston Best are the regular casks, and dogs are welcome in the bar. In May 2010 the Queen and Prince Philip stopped here for what the pub records as their first pub lunch.
Further along High Street, at number 28, the Red Lion is a plainer proposition: a split-level single room with a games area upstairs and a beer garden beyond the car park. One visitor called it "a little diamond of a village pub."
Out at Cloughton Newlands, the Bryherstones Country Inn is run by Paul and Sally Shipley, who list their suppliers by name: Andrew of Radfords in Sleights for meat, Dennis "the Cod father" Crooks of Whitby for fish, Phil "Choo-Choo" Train of Harwood Dale for produce. The menu is built around Sally's Famous Steak Pie, battered haddock with proper chips and homemade tartare sauce, and peppers stuffed with ratatouille. Timothy Taylor Landlord is the resident ale, and the large rear garden has a small play area.
The fourth pub, the Hayburn Wyke Inn, sits in woodland near the coast, an eighteenth-century coaching inn with wooden floors, beams and an open fire. It stands less than a quarter of a mile from the Cleveland Way and beside the Cinder Track, the old Scarborough-to-Whitby railbed now used by walkers and cyclists. Its Sunday carvery, with a choice of three roast meats, has a local following. Theakston Old Peculier and Black Sheep Best Bitter are among the hand-pulled ales, and the grounds run to ten acres with a children's play area.
The best walk starts from the former Cloughton Station: a five-mile circular to Hayburn Wyke and back, about three hours. It follows the Cleveland Way above unstable cliffs to a wooded valley with a rocky cove, a waterfall and giant boulders, then returns on the level bed of the old railway. The steps down into the Wyke are steep and rough, and turn slippery after rain. The woods hold roe deer, fox and badger; the rock pools below have limpets, crabs and butterfish. Scarborough is under six miles south down the A171, and the X93-X94 service links the village to Whitby and Robin Hood's Bay, so you can walk one way along the coast and ride back.
For a daytime stop, Carol's Pantry at Cober Hill serves cakes, coffee, breakfasts and light bites. A part-time Post Office counter runs inside St Mary's church. The church was built in 1831 and extended at the end of that century; inside are a 1704 marble monument to William and Priscilla Bower and a war-memorial tablet carved by Eric Gill.
The railway that the walk borrows opened in 1885 and closed under Beeching in March 1965. Cloughton won British Rail's Best Kept Station first prize in 1964, when stationmaster Alf Hart planted some 1,500 plants a year. The station kept two cats on the payroll as vermin catchers, one of them, Tyke, riding to Whitby with the fish, and a springer spaniel called Midge worked the platform for treats. Circus elephants were once unloaded at the cattle dock.
Cober Hill, the Victorian house above the village, was built in 1890 and bought in 1920 by Arnold Rowntree, who developed it as a recreational, educational and conference centre. The local sandstone was quarried here to build Scarborough's New Pier.
The village runs in a line along the ridge, squared sandstone walls and pantiled roofs, the moors lifting to the west. To the east the land rises just enough to hide the sea, which is less than two kilometres away and generally hidden from the village.