South Cliff Gardens and Valley Gardens, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

In 1626, a mineral spring was discovered at the foot of the South Cliff, Scarborough. In 1827, the Cliff Bridge Company was given control of the Spa and the adjacent cliff walks in exchange for building the Cliff Bridge linking these facilities to the town. A new Spa promenade was opened in 1839, overlooked by a 'Gothic Saloon' by Henry Wyatt. Gardens were laid out on the cliff by George Knowles, who lived at Woodend (now Wood End House) in The Crescent, where his own gardens were being developed concurrently.

In 1853 William Skipsey was appointed head gardener to the Spa, and in 1856 Sir Joseph Paxton (1803-65) built a Grand Hall of local stone to replace the Gothic Saloon, an extended promenade, a bandstand, and Italianate gardens with formal flower beds and balustraded stone staircases negotiating the steep cliffs. In 1860, a 'Swiss Chalet' was built near the northern entrance to the Spa Gardens and a summerhouse was added to the grounds in 1862. In the same year, at the north end of South Cliff, the 'People's Park' (now Valley Gardens) was laid out by the town Corporation on either side of Valley Road which led down to the seafront and the Spa promenade. This featured rockwork and a small pool which had formerly supplied water to cornmills demolished in the late 1850s. In 1862, Robert Williamson bought a skeleton iron bridge that had fallen into the River Ouse at York and re-erected it across the valley as Valley Bridge, giving vehicular access to the South Cliff. At the same time, the land along the top of the South Cliff was developed with an esplanade, private residences, and hotels. In 1874, the South Cliff Tramway Company built the first cliff tramway in Britain, which transported visitors up the cliff face adjacent to the Spa. In 1876, Paxton's Grand Hall burned down; it was replaced in 1880 by a new Grand Hall by Verity and Hunt which was built on the same footprint.

By 1880 the Corporation had commissioned William Skipsey to lay out the Holbeck Gardens, south of Dickinson's Point. This marked the beginning of further developments to the south of the Spa. The Belvedere Rosary was established from 1883 by George, Lord Beeforth, a successful art dealer. He built several properties at the southern end of the Esplanade, including his own house, connected to his Rosary by a subway. On the plateau below the Rosary he built a tennis court and walks along the cliff. The gardens were purchased from Beeforth by the Corporation in 1912. In the same year the Corporation bought from the Cliff Bridge Company about 2.4 hectares of undercliff between the tramway and the Belvedere Rosary. The money enabled the Company to enlarge the Spa promenade over the sands, and build a new bandstand; it was only in 1954 that the glass wings, originally planned as a means of uniting the bandstand with the Grand Hall, were constructed. The Corporation, in turn, embarked on a comprehensive scheme to unite the individual gardens and improve the cliffs between the Spa and the Holbeck Gardens to the south.

Harry W Smith was Scarborough's Borough Engineer from 1897 to 1933, and claimed to have enlarged the area of public gardens in Scarborough from 55 acres (about 22 hectares) to 350 acres (about 142 hectares). From around 1910 he laid out the South Cliff Gardens, where paths of easy gradient were edged with rocks from the beach, linking several separate gardens. The highlight of the area was the 1912 Italian Garden. Much of the stone employed in this layout was extracted from the bottom of the cliff, where, by 1914, Smith was building what was reputedly the first open-air tidal bathing pool in Britain.

The Corporation benefited from donations by some wealthy residents. George, Lord Beeforth handed over land that enabled the Corporation to enlarge the Esplanade in 1899, while in 1911, Alfred Shuttleworth donated the Holbeck Clock Tower, erected on the Esplanade at the main entrance to the Holbeck Gardens, to commemorate the coronation of King George V. In the same year, Shuttleworth presented to the town a garden he had laid out, including Miniature Gardens; these became known as the Shuttleworth Gardens.

Just below the Clock Tower, a new Putting Green was laid out at the end of the First World War and a pavilion had been erected on the north of the green by 1928. In the 1930s the Holbeck Gardens were renowned for their dahlia displays; tropical plants and cacti were favoured for 'a sheltered bed on the Esplanade during the summer months' (Lord, around 1984). Finally, in 1957, the Grand Hall, Spa, and Gardens were themselves purchased by the Corporation, thus uniting the whole of the Valley Gardens, Spa Gardens, and South Cliff Gardens under one ownership.

In 1993, the Holbeck Hall hotel, built on the south bank of the Holbeck Ravine and
overlooking the Holbeck Gardens, fell into the sea and took with it extensive parts of Skipsey's gardens. Measures to resist further encroachment have included the import of many tons of Norwegian boulders, to create 'rock-armour' around the point at Holbeck. The site remains (2000) in public use.