Cast your mind back to Anglo Saxon times and imagine people’s amazement at the miraculous sight of water suddenly bubbling up out of the ground after they’d asked an influential abbess to pray for the end to a lengthy drought.
This, then, is the legend attached to Hinderwell, a pretty village set back from the coast and tucked in between Staithes and Runswick Bay. Even the village’s name, derived from Hildrewell, honours the abbess, St Hilda, who passed through the village on her way to Whitby where she founded the Abbey.
From that point on, Hinderwell became a place of pilgrimage with pilgrims flocking to the holy well to seek benefit from the water’s healing properties.
Centuries later, and the village was transformed with the advent of the railway in the 1800s, when trains passed through carrying ironstone towards Teesside and fish landed at nearby Staithes.
At the same time, a mile away on the coast, a harbour called Port Mulgrave had been built to handle the export of ironstone from the local Grinkle Mine. With a narrow-gauge railway bringing in the ironstone and a tunnel (now sealed up) emerging from the cliffside 30ft above the harbour, the wagons had to be moved along a gantry for unloading.
Today, with the railway and the industry long gone, peace has returned but Hinderwell and Port Mulgrave (now a hamlet of miners’ cottages and a restaurant) remain proudly wedded to their heritage.
In fact, community spots such as the pretty Rookery woodland, the pub, and the Old School, a café which is a hub for visitors and residents alike, are well used to welcoming modern-day pilgrims or walkers as a network of footpaths radiate out in all directions.
These include two long distance paths, the Cleveland Way National Trail and St Hilda’s Way; a scenic circular route that includes Staithes, plus a steep cliffside path down to Port Mulgrave’s disused harbour and shoreline (sturdy footwear needed).
Hinderwell can even boast another claim to fame; as the place where England’s oldest breed of horse, the Cleveland Bay, first came into existence.
Last updated: 27 Oct 2026
