Visitors to Scarborough's healthy resort included Anne Bronte of Haworth , who retired here and died on 28th May 1849. She is buried in the churchyard of Scarborough's St Mary's Church. Around twenty mile of coastland separate Scarborough from Whitby to the north. There are few settlements along this rocky cliffland coast, including Ravenscar - 'The rock or scar inhabited by ravens' which lies half way between, but the most notable place in the area is Robin Hood's Bay about five miles south of Whitby. It is a place full of character, with pretty little houses clinging to the rocks, it resembles the village of Staithes to the north of Whitby .
Nobody really seems to be sure and the inhabitants sometimes call it Bay Town.
Legendary theories suggest that Robin Hood kept boats here to make a quick getaway or that the abbot of Whitby asked Robin to fight of Danish pirates here - Robin throwing huge bolders down the cliffs to crush the invaders. Filey's name is thought to mean the Five leys - 'the five meadows or forest clearings'. South of Filey is the great nose like peninsular called Flamborough Head where the wolds meet the sea and where the coast of the East Riding of Yorkshire meets North Yorkshire. In Iron Age times the peninsula was the site of a great fort which was protected on the land side by an ancient earthwork . Danes later settled in the area and the defensive earthwork of the earlier Iron Age became known as the Danes Dyke.