Ravenscar, village in North Yorkshire, England, UK
Ravenscar is a small village on the North Yorkshire coast in northern England, sitting on top of cliffs above the North Sea, roughly halfway between Whitby and Scarborough. It consists of a handful of houses, a hotel, and a visitor centre, surrounded by open moorland that meets the cliff edge.
The area developed in the 17th and 18th centuries around alum works that extracted minerals from the cliffs to supply the textile industry. In the late 19th century, a developer tried to turn Ravenscar into a seaside resort town, but the project failed and most of the planned streets were never built on.
Ravenscar sits on the Cleveland Way, a long-distance coastal path that walkers use as a stop between stretches of cliff-top trail. Near the edge of the village, a National Trust site preserves the stone remains of an old factory that most visitors walk past without noticing.
The village is easiest to reach by car, as public transport links are very limited; there is a car park next to the visitor centre. The cliff paths can be slippery after rain, so sturdy footwear is worth wearing before heading out on the trails.
Ravenscar is sometimes called 'the town that never was' because roads and drainage were laid out for a planned resort in the late 19th century, but almost no houses were ever built. The grid of those unbuilt streets can still be traced in the grass if you look carefully from the cliff edge.
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