Runswick Bay Beach

Runswick Bay is a lovely little beach that is about 8 miles north of Whitby. Runswick Bay takes about 40 to 45 mins to reach car from Scarborough. Runswick Bay is a great place to spend the day with the kids and go fossil hunting.

Runswick Bay boasts some very impressive scenery and is a favourite place for coastal walks. The walk down to Runswick Bay will take your breath away and not just because of the steep hill, the view over Runswick Bay is amazing.

Don’t worry if you don’t fancy the walk down the steep hill to Runswick Bay, there is a car park at the bottom. This is a pay and display council car park.

Our Runswick Bay Snaps

This photo shows the view you will get from your car as you drive down to Runswick Bay from Whitby. You get some stunning views of the North Yorkshire coastline as you drive from Scarborough to Runswick Bay.

This particular shot was taken just as we passed through Lythe; Runswick Bay is to the right of this shot.

The snap above shows the view you get of Runswick Bay from the Scarborough council car park based at the cliff top. There are always spaces in this car park but there is a steep walk down to Runswick Bay from here.

The photo above shows a closer view of Runswick Bay taken from the cliff top. As you can see Runswick Bay has a beautiful beach surrounded rolling green countryside.

I wanted to include this photo to show you how steep the hill is that leads down to the bottom car park at Runswick Bay. We always use the car park at the bottom so we don’t have to carry all our beach things down the steep hill.

This photo shows the Scarborough council car park that is at the bottom at Runswick Bay. The beach is only a short walk away from here; the spaces do fill up fast in the summer so get there early if you can.

This snap shows the short walk down to Runswick Bay from the lower car park. You can sit outside the cafe that is in the foreground of this shot and soak in the surroundings having a coffee or two.

Along the top of Runswick Bay there are a good number of benches you can sit on to watch the boats come in and out of the bay. As you can see they get very busy in the summer months.

This shot shows the view looking north of Runswick Bay out towards Staithes.

This photo was taken from the bench area in August 2012 as we were watching the sailing boats coming in and out of Runswick Bay.

This is the view looking south of Runswick Bay back towards Sandsend and Whitby. There is a short steep walk from here down to Runswick bay beach.

There are two Scarborough council car parks based at Runswick Bay, one at the top and one at the bottom. Both the car parks at Runswick Bay are pay and display, £5 for the day is very reasonable.

If you are on holiday in Scarborough then a trip to Runswick Bay would be a great day out weather you are going for a walk or rock pooling with the kids you will have a good time.

There are some other great beaches in and around the Runswick Bay area so you may decide to spend the night at Runswick Bay and check out Sandsend and Staithes too.

If you want something extra to do when you get to Runswick Bay you could have a look round the chapel that was built there in 1829. There is a spring behind the chapel that is well worth a look.

****Please note that the Chapel is now a private residence****