Scarborough, North Yorkshire

Scarborough (ˈskɑːrbrə) is a seaside town in the district and county of North Yorkshire, England. With a population of 61,749, Scarborough is the largest town on the Yorkshire Coast and the fourth-largest settlement in the county. It is located on the North Sea coastline. Historically in the North Riding of Yorkshire, the town lies between 10 and 230 feet (3–70 m) above sea level, from the harbour rising steeply north and west towards limestone cliffs. The older part of the town lies around the harbour and is protected by a rocky headland which extends into the North Sea The town has fishing and service industries, including a growing digital and creative economy, as well as being a tourist destination. Residents of the town are known as Scarborians. The town is claimed to have been founded around 966 AD as Skarðaborg ˈskɑrðɑˌborɡ by Thorgils Skarthi, a Viking raider. There is no archaeological evidence to support this claim, which was made during the 1960s as part of a pageant of Scarborough events. The claim is based on a fragment of an Icelandic Saga. In the 4th century, there was briefly a Roman signal station on Scarborough headland, and there is evidence of earlier settlements, during the Stone Age and Bronze Age. Any settlement between the fifth and ninth centuries would have been burned to the ground by a band of Vikings under Tostig Godwinson (a rival of Thorgils Skarthi), Lord of Falsgrave, or Harald III of Norway. These periodic episodes of destruction and massacre means that very little evidence of settlement during this period remained to be recorded in the Domesday survey of 1085. (The original inland village of Falsgrave was Anglo-Saxon rather than Viking.) A Roman signal station was built on a cliff-top location overlooking the North Sea. It was one of a chain of signal stations, built to warn of sea-raiders. Coins found at the site show that it was occupied from AD 370 until the early fifth century. In 2021 an excavation at a housing development in Eastfield, Scarborough, revealed a Roman luxury villa, religious sanctuary, or combination of both.