The Ship is the oldest pub in Saltburn and the last one standing from Old Saltburn, the fishing hamlet that was here before the Victorians built the resort across Skelton Beck. There were four inns once. The Seagull, the Dolphin and the Nimrod are all gone. Sources disagree on the age of the building itself, somewhere between the late 1500s and the late 1700s depending on who you ask, and it is Grade II listed either way.
John Andrew took over as landlord in 1780 and ran the local smuggling trade out of it for around forty years, which earned him the name King of the Smugglers. The part worth the price of a pint: he was also a Lieutenant in the North Yorkshire militia, the same militia occasionally called out to help customs officers chase smugglers. He was Master of the Cleveland Hunt as well, and friendly with the gentry who were quietly profiting from the whole arrangement. They got him in 1827 and he died in prison seven years later. The tunnels he used are believed to still be down there.
These days it is a Greene King house with three beers on, usually fewer in winter, and outside seating looking straight at the pier, the cliffs and the beach. Film crews like it, which tells you the front has not been ruined.
