Sea Glass Hunting in Yorkshire

The Complete Guide to the Yorkshire Coast

Region: Yorkshire and Cleveland coast
Beaches covered: 7
Best rated: Good
Coastline: North Sea

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Three treasures, one shoreline

Yorkshire is the only coast in Britain where you’re hunting three different things at once, and if you come here looking only for sea glass, you’ll walk past two of them.

There’s the glass, obviously. But this is also the Jet Coast, the only significant source of jet in the world: fossilised monkey puzzle wood from the Jurassic, washing out of the cliffs between Saltburn and Robin Hood’s Bay and finding its way onto the beach. Whitby jet drove one of the great Victorian jewellery booms after Prince Albert died and the whole country went into mourning. And it’s the fossil coast: ammonites, belemnites and the occasional something much larger, eroding out of the same cliffs, on the same tides, into the same strandlines you’re already searching.

That combination changes how you hunt here. You slow down. You pick things up that you’d leave elsewhere. And you learn to tell black glass from jet, which is a genuine skill, because they look alike at a glance and one is worth considerably more than the other. Jet is warmer to the touch, much lighter than it looks, and will leave a brown streak on unglazed pottery; black glass stays cold, feels heavy for its size and streaks white or not at all.

What Yorkshire doesn’t have is a Top beach, and I want to be straight about why. Just up the coast, County Durham had bottleworks tipping industrial waste directly into the sea for seventy years. Yorkshire never did. What it had was fishing villages, alum works and Victorian resorts, domestic and maritime rubbish rather than factory output. That’s a real structural difference, and it means the glass here comes in lower volume and thinner stock than at Seaham.

But six beaches earn a Good or better, the coastline is spectacular, and no other region gives you three collecting traditions in one afternoon.

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Yorkshire sea glass at a glance

Best overall: Robin Hood’s Bay
A smuggling village stacked down a ravine, a wave-cut rock platform full of scours and gullies that trap material, and the best all-round beachcombing in Yorkshire. Glass, fossils and jet all in the same visit. Dogs welcome year-round with no restrictions.

Best for beginners: Saltburn-by-the-Sea
Victorian pier, cliff tramway, a long open beach and everything you need within a few minutes’ walk. Easy terrain, generous space, and enough finds to build confidence. The most forgiving introduction on this coast.

Best for colour variety: Whitby
Nine hundred years of harbour traffic, a whaling fleet, Captain Cook’s shipyards and the jet trade all feeding one estuary mouth. The broadest range of finds in the region and the place to learn what jet actually looks like in the hand.

Best for sea pottery: Staithes
A tiny fishing village crammed into a gap in the cliffs, where cottages have been shedding household crockery into the beck and the sea for centuries. Dense, concentrated, and the shards come up beautifully worn.

Best without a car: Scarborough
Mainline trains from York and Hull put you a few minutes’ walk from South Bay. Only a Fair beach for glass and I won’t pretend otherwise, but it’s the easiest coastal day trip in the North of England, and Britain’s original seaside resort is worth the visit regardless.

Best dog-friendly: Runswick Bay
No seasonal restrictions at all, a sheltered horseshoe bay, and one of the prettiest stretches of coast in England. Fossils in the scars at the north end and a beach Trigger has never wanted to leave.

Best right now
The Yorkshire beaches shift constantly depending on swell direction and how much the cliffs have slumped recently. The Sea Glass Score updates daily. Check it the night before you go.

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How the coast divides

The Cleveland end: Saltburn and Staithes are where the coast turns from industrial Teesside into something wilder. High cliffs, deep ravines, former ironstone and alum workings in the hills behind. Saltburn is a proper Victorian resort; Staithes is a working village barely changed in a century.

The Whitby stretch: Runswick Bay, Whitby, Robin Hood’s Bay is the heart of it. This is jet country, fossil country and the most productive hunting in the region. Three villages within twenty minutes of each other, each with a completely different character.

The southern end: Scarborough and beyond towards Filey is resort coast. Bigger towns, sandier beaches, more people and thinner finds. Pleasant, easy, less rewarding.

A boundary note: Saltburn and Staithes sit administratively in the North East, but they belong here in every way a hunter cares about. The North East hub covers Northumberland and Durham.

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Every Yorkshire beach we’ve rated

Robin Hood’s Bay: Good
The gold standard for a Good beach on this site. A smuggler’s village of red roofs tumbling down to a wide rock platform riddled with gullies, scours and pools that catch and hold everything the sea brings in. Glass, pottery, fossils and jet. Steep walk down, steeper walk back.

Whitby: Good
Abbey on the cliff, harbour below, and centuries of maritime traffic in the water. Whaling, shipbuilding, fishing and the jet industry all left material here. Note the seasonal dog restriction on West Cliff.

Staithes: Good
Captain Cook’s first sight of the sea. A cluster of cottages jammed into a cleft in the cliffs with a beck running through it, and a beach that concentrates material into a small, workable area. Excellent for pottery.

Runswick Bay: Good
A sheltered curve of sand and scars below a village of white cottages. Fossils at the northern end where the shales come down to the beach, glass along the strandline. Dogs all year.

Saltburn-by-the-Sea: Good
A planned Victorian resort with the oldest working water-balance cliff lift in Britain. Long beach, easy access, consistent finds. Dogs restricted between the pier and Hazelgrove in summer.

Scarborough: Fair
The gold standard for a Fair beach on this site, rated honestly. Britain’s first seaside resort, spa town since the 1620s, two big bays and genuine history. Occasional glass rather than reliable. Go for the town and take what the beach gives you.

Skinningrove: Good
The Ironstone Shore, and the most industrial beach on the Yorkshire coast. Cattersty Sands is a long sweep of sand and shingle bookended by rocky outcrops and bisected by an 1886 ironstone jetty still running out into the North Sea. Cleveland produced more than a third of the world’s iron and steel at its peak, and the ore came out of the cliffs directly above this beach. The Land of Iron Museum in the village sits on Cleveland’s first ironstone mine. Work east of the jetty: shingle patches, the high-tide strandline, and the rocky outcrops at the cliff base at low water. Very few people looking.

Four beaches were ruled out rather than padded in. Redcar and Bridlington are too sandy to produce anything. Filey is Fair at best and doesn’t justify a trip of its own. Flamborough remains flagged for a proper assessment; the chalk geology there is unlike anywhere else on this coast, and I’d rather look at it properly than guess.

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What Yorkshire sea glass actually looks like

Common: Green, brown and white, in moderate quantity. Thinner stock than the North East domestic bottles, rather than bottleworks waste.

Occasional: Aqua and pale blue, mostly around the harbour towns where older bottle glass concentrates.

Rare: Cobalt blue and purple. Genuinely uncommon here.

Black glass, and this is the Yorkshire complication. Very dark olive or near-black glass from old bottles turns up regularly and on this coast, so does jet. Hold it to a strong light: black glass will usually show a dark green or brown edge; jet won’t. Jet is noticeably lighter in the hand and faintly warm. If you’re not sure, keep it. Working out which is which at the kitchen table is half the fun of coming home from Yorkshire.

Sea pottery in real quantity. The fishing villages have been shedding crockery for centuries, and Staithes and Robin Hood’s Bay both produce well-worn transferware and glazed shards.

And the fossils. Ammonites are common enough along this coast that Whitby’s coat of arms carries three of them. Belemnites, crinoids and shale nodules turn up in the same strandlines as the glass. You don’t have to collect them, but you should know what you’re looking at.

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When to go

Winter, after a North Sea storm. Same rule as the whole east coast: the weather does the work, not the tide. The range here is around five metres on springs, decent but not dramatic; what genuinely opens this coast up is a hard blow stripping the beaches back to the scars.

And on this coast, storms bring down the cliffs. That’s how jet and fossils reach the beach in the first place: the shales slump, the material washes out, and the days after a big weather event are transformative. It’s also why you must not stand under the cliffs. Yorkshire’s coast is actively eroding, and rockfalls are a genuine risk, not a theoretical one.

Watch the tide carefully at Robin Hood’s Bay and Runswick. Both have rock platforms that cover quickly and access points that can be cut off. Know your turn time before you walk out.

Ebbing tide, ideally a spring low, to get the scours and gullies exposed at Robin Hood’s Bay. That’s where the material collects.

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Dogs on the Yorkshire coast

Two councils cover this stretch, and between them they’ve left most of the best hunting beaches completely unrestricted.

North Yorkshire Council, which absorbed the old Scarborough Borough Council in 2023, runs restrictions on parts of Scarborough, Filey, Whitby and Sandsend between 1 May and 30 September. That covers signposted zones on sections of Filey, Scarborough South Bay and North Bay, Whitby West Cliff and Sandsend.

Crucially, though: areas not marked on the council’s map, including Robin Hood’s Bay beach, have no seasonal dog restrictions at all. Neither do Staithes or Runswick Bay. So the three best hunting beaches in the region are open to dogs year-round, which is a very good outcome.

Whitby’s Tate Hill Beach on the east side of the harbour was lead-only, and the 2025 review proposed removing its restrictions entirely, with the revised order adopted that May. Check the signage; it may now be unrestricted.

Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council covers Saltburn. Dogs are excluded from designated areas of Redcar and Saltburn beaches between 1 May and 30 September; at Saltburn, this is the stretch between Hazelgrove and the pier. That order has been renewed through to 30 June 2028, so those dates are settled for a few years. The north and south ends of Saltburn beach stay open all year.

Fines are the standard on-the-spot penalty, rising to as much as £1,000 if it reaches court.

For dog-friendly cafés and pubs, Yappy Places has good coverage in Whitby, Robin Hood’s Bay and Staithes; the whole coast is used to wet dogs and muddy boots.

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Worth the stop, but not for the glass

Ravenscar: the town that was never built. A Victorian resort speculation that failed, leaving laid-out streets and no houses, plus the remains of the alum works below. Extraordinary place.

Whitby Abbey: the ruin that gave Bram Stoker his setting. Worth the 199 steps.

Filey Brigg: a natural rock spur running out to sea, superb at low water. Fair for glass at best, but a great walk.

Sandsend: three miles from Whitby, alum works in the cliffs behind, and one of the better cafés on the coast. Dog restrictions in summer.

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Planning a Yorkshire hunting trip

A day: Robin Hood’s Bay. Get there for a falling tide, work the scours, walk up for lunch, come back down. Don’t try to add a second beach. The walk back up alone will convince you.

A weekend: Base in Whitby. Robin Hood’s Bay and Whitby itself on day one; Runswick Bay and Staithes on day two. All four are within half an hour of each other.

Three days: Add Saltburn at the north end and Scarborough at the south. That’s the whole coast covered comfortably.

Getting here without a car: Scarborough has mainline services from York and Hull, with the beach minutes from the station. Whitby is on the Esk Valley line from Middlesbrough, and buses run along the coast road linking Whitby, Robin Hood’s Bay, Runswick and Staithes; genuinely usable, though check the timetable against your tide window. Saltburn is on the Northern network from Darlington and Middlesbrough.

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From beach to jewellery

Yorkshire is a jewellery coast in a way nowhere else in Britain is. This is where Victorian Britain came for its jet, and the tradition never fully died out in Whitby. Sea glass sits naturally alongside that history. At Mermaid Tears, every piece starts on a UK beach exactly like these, hand-hunted and handmade into something you’ll keep. Browse the collection.

Coming here? The UK Sea Glass Field Guide covers colour identification and rarity tiers, including how to tell dark bottle glass from the things that look like it. Get the guide.

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Disclaimer: Tide times, dog restrictions, parking charges and beach conditions change regularly. Dog rules on this coast are set by North Yorkshire Council and Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council on separate cycles. Always check current signage before visiting. The Yorkshire coast is actively eroding: cliffs slump and rockfalls happen, particularly after heavy rain or storms. Never hunt directly beneath the cliffs, and check tide times before crossing rock platforms at Robin Hood’s Bay or Runswick Bay, as both can cut off access.

Last updated: August 2026

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Frequently asked questions

Where is the best place to find sea glass in Yorkshire?
Robin Hood’s Bay. The wave-cut rock platform is full of gullies and scours that trap glass, pottery, fossils and jet, and there are no seasonal dog restrictions. Whitby is the strongest alternative and has the broadest range of finds thanks to centuries of harbour traffic.

Is Yorkshire good for sea glass hunting?
Good, not exceptional. No Yorkshire beach earns a Top rating here, because the county never had the industrial glassworks that make County Durham extraordinary. The glass is domestic and maritime in origin, so it comes in lower volume and thinner stock. What Yorkshire offers instead is variety: it’s the only British coast where you can hunt sea glass, jet and Jurassic fossils on the same tide.

How do you tell Whitby jet from black sea glass?
Jet is much lighter than it looks, faintly warm to the touch, and leaves a brown streak on unglazed pottery. Black glass feels heavy for its size, stays cold, and usually shows a dark green or brown edge when held up to strong light. If you’re unsure on the beach, bring it home and test it there.

Can you find sea glass at Whitby?
Yes. The harbour mouth and the beaches either side turn up a good range, helped by nine centuries of shipping, whaling and the jet trade. It’s rated Good on this site. Note the seasonal dog restriction on West Cliff between 1 May and 30 September.

Are Yorkshire beaches dog friendly?
Mostly, and the best hunting beaches are the least restricted. Robin Hood’s Bay, Staithes and Runswick Bay have no seasonal restrictions at all. Scarborough, Whitby West Cliff, Sandsend, Filey and part of Saltburn restrict dogs between 1 May and 30 September.

When is the best time to hunt sea glass on the Yorkshire coast?
Winter, on a falling spring tide, in the days after a North Sea storm. Storms don’t just move material along this coast — they bring down the cliffs, which is what releases jet and fossils onto the beach in the first place. Stay well clear of the cliff bases while you’re there.