The Bay Hotel sits at the bottom of the bank on the Dock at Robin Hood’s Bay, at the point where the lane runs out and the North Sea starts. Grade II listed, built in 1822, and a plaque on the outside wall marks the end of Alfred Wainwright’s Coast to Coast Walk.
That plaque is the reason to come. Walkers finishing the 192 miles from St Bees in Cumbria arrive at this exact spot, walk down to the water, dip their boots in the sea to wash off three national parks, then come inside to sign the book and pick up a certificate. Many of them have carried a pebble from St Bees the whole way to throw in here. The bar has been keeping that register for decades.
The bar in question is Wainwright’s, in the basement, named for the man himself, and one of the four cask ales on the handpulls is a beer named after him too. It opens seasonally, so check before you plan a finish around it. The Robin Hood’s Bay folk club meets in there. Upstairs has its own stone-stepped entrance, food, and a patio over the sea that the pub itself admits is a challenge at high tide in a wind.
