Gems of a bygone age

Saltburn's heyday was in the Victorian age. As the Stockton & Darlington Railway developed, local rail tycoon Henry Pease saw the potential of what was then a sleepy hamlet with a dark smugglers' history. A grand hotel, The Zetland, was built, along with terraces of seaview villas, a pier, and a funicular lift to take day trippers from the station on top of the cliffs down to the beach.

Many of these gems still stand proud in Saltburn.

Saltburn's 'Italian Pleasure Gardens', that mainstay of Victorian bathing resorts

Lady P admires the old school planting

The funicular cliff lift and the pier - treasures of Victorian engineering

The rather grand Zetland Hotel

A sweet Victorian station, originally built to bring day trippers out from smoggy old Middlesbrough

Victorian shopping arcades (this shop is now, usefully, a Boots)

And down by the seaside some old fashioned seaside entertainment prevails, including donkey rides.

Look closely at that last picture and you'll see something else you may have thought was a relic of a bygone age: child labour. We watched this kid picking up the donkeys' poo for a good while last weekend.

I know, amazing what passes for children's entertainment up here, isn't it?