Yorkshire trip was a coastal cracker

Rain didn’t dampen spirits.

It was our first visit to North Yorkshire’s Heritage Coast and we wanted to see and do it all.

Whitby, Scarborough, Filey all the places it seemed everyone else had been to and raved about. But it quickly became clear that first I’d have to drag Mrs S and the wee fella away from where we were staying.

The Bay Filey is a custom-built holiday village just down the coast from the seaside town of the same name. A £120m development, it’s billed as the first and best coastal holiday village in Britain and it’s hard to argue.

Set on one of the finest stretches of beach in the country, it’s a stunning spot.

After driving down from Glasgow, the first thing we did was head for that beach and on a beautiful summer evening it was a great place to stretch the legs with a rugby ball.

When the weather was wet, instead of the beach to relax after a hard day’s sightseeing we headed for the village’s leisure complex and a swim in its cracking pool. Oddly, I never made it to the gym…

When you remember The Bay Filey also boasts a tennis court, archery, putting and a fishing lake stuffed with carp, you can see how some folk quite happily never leave.

Actually, I could see some folk being reluctant to leave their accommodation.

We were in a two-bedroom cottage and it was like living in a show home. Beautifully decorated and equipped, our evening routine quickly became sinking into the comfy couches and watching a DVD on the huge flat-screen TV.

Food first, though, and as we couldn’t face getting back into the car after the drive down and, I admit, a couple of beers in the village’s own pub, the John Paul Jones it was back to said hostelry for dinner.

And our laziness proved a bonus as a massive starter of nachos was followed by two burgers and a perfect sirloin for the steak-mad Shaw Jr. Tip-top.

Next door is Caf Italia which supplies coffee and superb cakes as well as pretty darn good pizzas that was Sunday night’s tea taken care of.

Scarborough was our port of call on our first day proper and we headed straight to the castle where, as luck would have it, English Heritage was staging a knights tournament.

This was an absolute blast as teams of 20-odd medieval soldiers charged across the castle grounds trying to knock the crest off the opposing knight’s helmet.

It was like rugby with weapons and the best bit was when the blue team’s knight lost his footing and, propelled by a fair few stone of armour, face-planted into the ground leaving a Tom and Jerry-style hole in the sodden turf.

Sodden? Yep, it was raining hard enough to rust your chain mail but it eased off as we explored the town itself which is very much a favourite of the bucket ‘n’ spade brigade.

We stopped off in Filey on the way back and were very taken with this quieter town, though my son Euan incurred a two-shot penalty on the shorefront crazy golf for clambering on to a giant lobster.

“Sorry,” I told him, “but strict rules of golf, Goldfinger.”

I have to admit, we sold Whitby to him on the basis of Dracula and it’s easy to see how the ruins of the town’s Gothic abbey inspired Bram Stoker’s tale.

Take a tip and park in the abbey car park. It’s on the right side of Whitby and will save you trying to navigate down into the town with its narrow streets.

Next to the abbey is the Church of St Mary with its fascinating 18th Century box pews reserved for specific families with some “For Strangers Only”.

There’s a note in the door saying the church has nowt to do with Dracula but the graveyard was the setting for a scene in the novel and it’s easy to imagine the old Count sinking his teeth into poor Lucy Westenra.

Descend the 199 stone steps to the old town itself and you’ll find yourself in a warren of narrow streets which beg to be explored and don’t miss the Whitby Lifeboat Museum which is fascinating and free.

The Yorkshire coast is rightly famed for its seafood and a walk out along the boardwalk to the farthest point of the harbour mouth fairly sharpens the appetite for fish ‘n’ chips.

The Quayside is reigning British chipper of the year and Mrs S and I couldn’t fault the cod, nor Euan the haddock, but there were dark mutterings from nearby that: “The mushy peas at the Magpie are better.”

Once again we stopped off on the way back to the Bay and this time headed for Robin Hood’s Bay, a cracking, picturesque little seaside village renowned for its steep, narrow road down to the seafront.

The tide was in so the beach was out, but ice creams all round for the return ascent more than made up for that. Now all I had to do was try to convince them to leave our little cottage and head home the next day…

The Bay Filey has a mix of apartments, New England-style beach houses and holiday cottages of various sizes you can either rent or buy outright. For more information visit thebayfiley.com or call 08006 121 621.