Two becks reach the sea at Sandsend, each coming down its own wooded valley off the Mulgrave Estate. Sandsend Beck and East Row Beck give the village its shape: a broad sandy beach running southeast towards Whitby, whose pier and abbey stand along the shore, and a pair of older settlements strung together by later building along the front. Children paddle in the becks where they cross the sand. Northwest, the beach gives way to cliffs and the remains of old alum quarries.
The Fish Cottage sits about twenty yards from the beach and does two jobs at once: a seafood restaurant and a fish-and-chip takeaway, with a garden terrace. It opened in 2020. The takeaway runs to beef-dripping fish and chips, smoked-haddock fishcakes, crab-loaded fries and black-pudding fritters; the day-boat catch sheet changes with what comes in, taking in coley with lemon-and-caper butter, hake with parsley velouté, turbot with beurre blanc and monkfish with romesco.
For something more formal, Estbek House is a Grade II-listed Georgian house with rooms and two AA Rosettes. Tim Lawrence, the chef, spent twenty-five years as head chef at Trenchers in Whitby before this; his co-owner David Cross looks after the wine. The menu changes daily around whatever wild fish is landed, and has taken in scallops, hot-smoked salmon, Whitby kipper pâté, lobster Thermidor and a Shiraz-glazed fillet steak. The travel writer Paddy Burt called it "a handsome Georgian house in a picturesque village close to a sandy beach."
Mary's Sandwich Shop keeps the daytime end busy. The Piccante stacks mortadella, prosciutto, spicy salami, Gruyère, mozzarella, chilli jam and 'nduja mayo; there is a Porchetta Banh Mi with Vietnamese-spiced pork belly, and a French Dip of roast Yorkshire beef, provolone, caramelised onion and gravy. Sandside Café stands on the foundations of the demolished railway viaduct and has been run since 2022 by a local farming family, Paul and Alison Hodgson. Its triple-chocolate brownie has won awards; there are fruit and cheese scones, gluten-free carrot cake, and banana, peanut-butter and honey "pupcakes" for dogs, who get their own covered seating.
Down on the sand, Tides began as a beach-hut kiosk in 2010 and now has a wood-fired pizza oven, breakfast buns, cornflake tart and eighteen flavours of Yorkshire dairy ice cream, along with children's wetsuits and aqua shoes for anyone who arrived unprepared. The Hart Inn, beside East Row Beck, is the village pub: bar dining and a separate restaurant, a beer garden and parking at the back, Black Sheep Best Bitter and Greene King IPA on the bar. Dogs are welcome in the bar and garden but not the dining room. On the edge of the village, Saltmoore's brasserie is in the Michelin Guide for dishes like Whitby-crab tartlet and a North York Moors heather-honey crème brûlée, and its Beach House pizzeria pours locally brewed Turning Point ales. Families with small children have Tree Tots, a woodland-themed play café at East Row for ages nought to five.
The walking is the reason many people come. A beach circuit of about three miles takes roughly two hours, out along the sand at low tide and back through the village with the abbey in view. The Cleveland Way runs both ways along the cliffs; Runswick Bay is five miles north on foot, or about eleven minutes up the coast on the Arriva X4 from the Lythe Bank Bottom stop, which runs back into Whitby in around the same time; worth checking the timetable before you go. Whitby itself is about five kilometres southeast, its station the nearest on the rail network, and the A174 runs straight through the village. Inland, Mulgrave Woods open to walkers on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, closed for the whole of May, dogs on leads. The wider coast is Jurassic sandstone and shale, and the loose beach material turns up ammonites; keep to the sand and watch the tide.
Alum was worked here from 1733, and most of the alum house now lies under the main car park, with one rubble wall and its two entrances still standing. Trains reached Sandsend in 1883 and stopped in 1958; the station is a private house now. St Mary's, the small church in the valley, was close to shutting in 2017 until villagers raised more than £250,000 to reroof, heat and light it and swap the pews for stackable chairs. It holds a weekly gathering called Coffee and Quack.