Stainsacre

Stone Bridges and the Windmill Inn

Two stone railway bridges frame the approaches to Stainsacre, left over from the Scarborough and Whitby line. Between them sits a small village a couple of miles south-east of Whitby, its older core a pair of sandstone terraces at the end of Summerfield Lane, the cottages a modest one-and-a-half storeys under red clay pantiles with brick chimneys and stone water tabling. A curved stone wall with rounded copings marks the edge of Stainsacre Hall. Later brick and rendered houses fill in the gaps.

The Windmill Inn is a reason to stop. It is family-run, with stone floors, a real fire and a separate twenty-seat restaurant, and it was already trading in 1890, when the licensed victualler was W. R. Smithies. The kitchen changes its menu regularly and cooks from local produce where it can. Recent dishes have run from chicken liver parfait with crispy chicken skin and onion chutney, and fried squid with garlic, curry leaves and almonds, to beer-battered Whitby haddock, a chicken parmo, butter chicken and a butter halloumi curry. There are at least two changing cask ales; Theakston Best Bitter and Wainwright Gold have both appeared, though neither is fixed. CAMRA's Cleveland branch calls it an "attractive pub in an attractive village."

A Garden for Walkers and Dogs

Dogs are welcome in the bar and garden, on a lead and supervised. The garden itself is large, enclosed and set out with picnic benches and a children's play area at the back, which makes the Windmill an easy stop for walkers and cyclists coming off the nearby Cinder Track. If you want to stay on, the pub has three en-suite rooms and four shepherd huts.

Arriving Without a Village Shop

There is no shop in the village at present, so bring what you need or drive the short distance into Whitby, close by on the A171. Whitby station, managed by Northern and about two miles away, has step-free access to every platform, and Arriva's route 95 links the Eskdale School stop with Whitby, Ruswarp, Briggswath and Sleights from Monday to Saturday.

The Cinder Track and Beck Valley

Walking is the real draw. The Cinder Track, a Victorian railway turned bridleway, runs for about twenty-one miles between Scarborough and Whitby and gives Stainsacre direct, traffic-free access towards the coast. For something quieter, a path drops out of the village into the narrow, wooded Stainsacre Beck valley, crossing a muddy track, a ford and a footbridge, past Cock Mill and the point where Stainsacre and Rigg Mill Becks meet. Bulmer's 1890 directory found Cock Mill "delightfully situated in a richly-wooded dingle" beside a small waterfall. The route joins the Cinder Track towards the Larpool Viaduct and Whitby, and you can come back over the 199 Steps and along the coast to the lighthouse.

What the Railway Left Behind

The village grew up around a corn mill, dismantled in the 1940s, and the mill has gone; the railway that later served the village has gone too, leaving only the two bridges. Stainsacre Hall, home in 1913 to Colonel William Holliday Attlay, later became an outdoor activity centre before it closed. What remains is the Windmill Inn, a scatter of houses, and the beck dropping through the trees below.