The cliff everyone looks away from
It’s easy to neglect the main cliff face that follows you on the left as you go down the path to Saltwick beach. It’s easy to look away… east towards the dramatic Black Nab, down while you search for fossils on the shale and in the boulders, or west to the stacks of Saltwick Nab itself and the telltale redness of the historic alum burning.
Black Nab appears in my artwork again and again – in paintings, drawings, and collages. Saltwick Nab appears less often but still holds a dear place in my images.
But the cliff you can’t avoid is simply looming over you. I’ve walked over the top, under the cliff more times than I can remember, and sat on the path just next to it drawing Black Nab from a height. Let’s call it the Path Cliff.
But I have few photos of the Path Cliff.
I have one main photo that includes this particular cliff view – a portrait of me taken by photographer Andrew Shaylor. The cliff on the left edge is the one sat next to the path down, from the caravan park that sits atop. (Saltwick Nab is in the distance, and I’m looking towards Black Nab out of frame)
Other than that, I was always pointing my camera out and away to other viewpoints while I stood right here.
This specific cliff is captured in my painting ‘Saltwick Falls’, and there are a few drawings and small studies. And of course it’s geology is described my book “Saltwick”. (a few pages shown below) Part of the strata is even named after this bay – the Saltwick Formation (SwK). (read about it on the British Geological Survey site here)
I also have a photo of the painting “Saltwick Falls” in progress – the very first layers of colour, and before any geology lines were drawn in. And one of my lockdown paintings from 2020 features the cliff looking at it from the west approach, with sandstones and heavy strata of dark shales.
But even this, I admit, might actually be a cliff face slightly more towards Whitby – because the dark high layer is likely to be the Dogger ironstone. The ironstone dips down from high up in the cliffs starting just after the Path Cliff.
You might notice that there are no falls, as in waterfalls. Because the painting isn’t named after waterfalls. Rather, it’s called “Saltwick Falls” because these faces of these cliffs are frequently collapsing and falling into slumps of rock and rubble on the beach. Last year part of the path between Saltwick and Whitby was closed due to a collapse. Our local stretch of coast is very prone to this environmental loss. (Small geology lesson: changes in climate mean we are getting more weather extremes such as harder storms and droughts. Over-dry sediments can be fragile and fall, while the differences in the water absorption of different sediment layers can lead to slippage after high rainfall. Both lead to rock face falls.)
Writing this blog has been a reminder that it’s been too long since I visited. And I’ll be sure to look up and back and take photos next time!
Tina Mammoser 