THE EARLY HISTORY OF FILEY.* 
269 
T. SHEPPARD, F.G.S. 
Filey, the sea-side resort, the Filey as we know it to-day. 
may be said to date from the discovery of a ‘ Spa well ’ of 
undoubted nastiness but doubtful quality, just about the time 
when medicinal waters became a craze throughout the land. 
That was a century or so ago, when nearly all the ills that 
flesh was heir to were cured by drinking evil-smelling and 
vile-looking liquids, known as spa-waters. Probably the 
patients felt that this was a more welcome cure than the 
previously popular ' bleeding.' and hence its charm. 
Harrogate and Scarborough, about the same time, made 
a bid for popularity on the strength (sic) of their spa-waters, 
and we find quite an extensive literature dealing with these 
various springs and their healing properties. 
Of course there was a Filey before the Spa — there are still 
old houses which prove that. The church also takes us even 
earlier. But to begin at the beginning we should have to go 
further back by several hundred years. 
It so happens that in the immediate vicinity of Filey there 
is evidence of the almost continuous occupation of the area 
for certainly far more than two thousand years. 
Of the Palaeolithic or old-stone-age men, there are, of 
course, no relics in this area, notwithstanding recent reports 
to the contrary. But of the new-stone or Neolithic age there 
are quite a large number of evidences. The hills around the 
township are strewn with neolithic weapons. The dark-flints 
which are contained in the drift beds provided the material 
for the axes and spears and arrows and scrapers ; the flint in 
the Flamborough chalk being too brittle and unsuitable. 
Within a very small area in a single field at Reighton, Mr. C. G. 
Danford and I obtained nearly three hundred flakes, a few 
years ago. Only a few miles to the south I have recorded 
neolithic workshops on a large scale, f 
In addition to these, some beautifully wrought hammer- 
stones and axes, often perforated, are recorded from the 
district, Speeton and Hunmanby especially having produced 
quite a large series. 
A little later in date are the barrows or burial mounds of the 
Bronze-age, which have been opened at various points in the 
district. That at Gristhorpe, now in the Scarborough museum, 
is perhaps the best known. In that case the bones of the 
skeleton, together with a bronze dagger, etc., were found in 
a coffin made from a hollowed trunk of an oak tree, a few though 
* Read at the Filey meeting' of the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union, 
t See The Naturalist, 1910, pp. 293-298. 
1914 Sept. 1. 
