Historical Saltburn
Saltburn by the Sea has a rich and varied tapestry of historical development. Although Saltburn's most obvious features are of Victorian origin, its history goes back much further. There is evidence that it was inhabited by a hermit in the thirteenth century and even earlier, during Roman times, it was the site of a fortified Roman signalling station.

Huntcliff
Travelling down the coast towards Saltburn from the north, the relatively flat coastline terminates abruptly when you arrive at Huntcliff Nab, a great promontary which projects out into the North Sea. Dominating the coastline a mile to the east of Saltburn, Huntcliff is a vertical sea cliff standing some 365ft above sea level and is a site familiar to all visitors of the town.
Saltburn can trace its history to at least 369 AD when the Romans were in occupation. Huntcliff was one of a number of Roman signalling stations situated along the Yorkshire coast which were built as watchtowers to protect against the threat of Anglo-Saxon raids from Denmark and Germany. By 410 AD the Roman’s had deserted Britain leaving it to the mercy of the raiders. Saltburn's Roman tower was defended by a group of Romanised Britons, who met with a sad end when it was eventually overrun in the fourth century A.D.

The raiders brutally murdered them all and dumped their bodies in a nearby well, where they were finally discovered in an excavation in 1923. The skeletons of fourteen people, men women and children, were found and were clearly the victims of murder. The earthwork remains of the old Roman fort are still in evidence on the top of Huntcliff today.
The Anglo-Saxons settled along the Cleveland coast and named a local stream Sealt-Burna meaning the salty stream, perhaps from its salty water or because of the salt-like alum found in the neighbourhood. Vikings came three centuries later and changed the names of all the local burns to becks. The settlement on the Salt Burn retained its name, but the stream became the Skelton Beck.
The little fishing village of Saltburn grew beneath the prominent Cat Nab. It was a small place, famed for smuggling and fishing until 1860, when the Stockton and Darlington Railway was extended to the site and Henry Pease of Darlington began his development of the Victorian coastal resort of Saltburn-by-the-Sea.
The original Saltburn, consisting of a row of fishermen's cottages and the Ship Inn, still stands entirely alone, facing the sea on the Huntcliff side of Skelton beck. From the sands here there is little of modern Saltburn to be seen besides the pier. The rectangular streets and blocks of houses have been wisely placed some distance from the edge of the grassy cliffs, leaving the sea-front relatively unspoiled.