Robin Hood's Bay Marine Laboratory

The Robin Hood's Bay Marine Laboratory was a marine scientific research and education unit in North Yorkshire, England, from 1912 to 1982. Purchased in 1998 by the National Trust, the previous structure was demolished, and the present building constructed to the style of the old coastguard station and opened as a visitor and interpretation centre.

The village of Robin Hood's Bay (known locally as Baytown) is situated on the north side of a wide sweeping bay about six miles south of Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast of England. Baytown rests on mud banks that cover layers of limestone and blue shale. At low tide long rocky scaurs can be seen and there is an abundance of fossils to be found. Originating in the early 16th century, the village rapidly became one of the most important fishing centres on the Yorkshire coast, reaching its zenith in the mid-19th century, before its rapid decline following the introduction of steam power. The coming of the railway in 1885 and the consequent influx of tourists and visitors, compensated for the decline of the local fishing industry. The village is a mixture of four storey town houses and split-level cottages, on a very steep three-in-one hill leading down to an area known as the Dock and the Wayfoot on the edge of the sea.

In 1907 Walter Garstang was appointed Professor of Zoology at the University of Leeds. Recognised as one of the country's leading marine scientists, Professor Garstang had been Assistant Director of the Plymouth Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, and in charge of the Association's Lowestoft Laboratory while directing Great Britain's part in the International Fishery Investigations of the North Sea.

Walter Garstang first visited Robin Hood's Bay at Easter in 1909, with T.H. Taylor, his assistant lecturer and demonstrator in zoology, and Ll. Lloyd, his first advanced student (and later to be his Reader in Entomology and Protozoology). Ll. Lloyd, who had known the area since boyhood, later recalled that they stayed at the Bay Hotel "and its verandha, the sea washing its wall at high tide, was our Laboratory" where they sorted and examined the great variety of animals collected from the shore and rock pools. In 1912, in cooperation with Alfred Denny, Professor of Zoology at Sheffield University, Walter Garstang established a marine research facility in Baytown, in an old building at the Wayfoot previously used as the coastguard cottage, and owned by Mrs. Martha Storm, a member of the long-established local fishing family. Jointly funded by Leeds and Sheffield Universities, the facility was known as Yorkshire Universities Marine Laboratory, and was used as a summer base for fieldwork, teaching and research by the Departments of Zoology and Botany. Initially for a two-year trial period, the two universities agreed to the annual outlay of £4 each for rent and up to £10 each for upkeep.

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