History
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St Oswald's Church
In 1857 the foundations of a 4th-century Roman signal station were discovered at the Carr Naze cliff edge at the northern end of Filey Bay. The structure is 160 feet (50 m) long with a square tower 46 feet (14 m) wide, a defensive ditch and ramparts from a later era. Excavations at the time of the find and subsequently in the 1920s and 1990s uncovered Roman pottery and hoards of coins. The site is a protected Scheduled Monument. The find of Roman remains supports the case for Filey being the Roman settlement of Portus Felix.
The origin of the name Filey is uncertain. One theory derives it from the Old English fīfelēg meaning 'monster island' referring to the shape of a rock projection at the shore. Other theories derive it from fīflēah meaning 'five woods or clearings' or from the Old Norse fífa meaning 'cottongrass' and the Old English lēah meaning 'wood or clearing'.
The 12th century parish church dedicated to St Oswald, on Church Hill in the north of the town, is a Grade I listed building. It is the oldest building in Filey and Nicholas Pevsner wrote "This is easily the finest church in the NE corner of the East Riding" (Buildings of England). St Oswald's has nearly 1,500 pieces of well-preserved medieval graffiti on the roof of the tower, ranging from initials up to complicated images of fully rigged sailing vessels, including one known as a Whitby Cat. The graffiti covers around 400 years of Filey's history, and maps out identifiable people, their occupations, changes in literacy and coastal shipping, the start of tourism in the area, and even a possible record of 17th century plague. The graffiti was recorded and analysed by Historic England in 2016.
Filey was a small village until the 18th century when visitors from Scarborough arrived seeking the peace and quiet that Filey then offered. In 1835 a Birmingham solicitor called John Wilkes Unett bought 7 acres (2.8 ha) of land and built the Crescent, later known as the Royal Crescent, which was opened in the 1850s. On several occasions in the mid-19th century, the novelist Charlotte Brontë visited Filey with the aim of recovering her faltering health. In June 1852 she wrote to her father: "The Sea is very grand. Yesterday it was a somewhat unusually high tide - and I stood about an hour on the cliffs yesterday afternoon - watching the tumbling in of great tawny turbid waves - that make the whole shore white with foam and filled the air with a sound hollower and deeper than thunder.
The Lobster sculpture
Fishing at Filey has been a tradition for centuries, with most of those undertaking it coming from a long line of fishermen and women in their families. The fishing boats at Filey are cobles, like most of the others along the Yorkshire and North East coasts, and the catch is mostly sea trout. Limitations have been placed upon how and where they use their nets, which also trap salmon; some fear this may lead to the end of the fishing industry in Filey. In 1804, a lifeboat was procured for the town and it became a Royal National Lifeboat Institution asset in 1852. Filey Lifeboat Station is still in existence and has an inshore and an all-weather boat on station. The all-weather lifeboat was replaced in early 2021 with an Atlantic 85 vessel.
English composer Frederick Delius stayed as a boy on the Crescent with his family at Miss Hurd's boarding house (number 24) in 1876 and 1877, and then at Mrs Colley's (number 24) in 1897.
In 1931 the spire of a church was damaged by the Dogger Bank earthquake.
The Station Pub
For more than 40 years Butlin's Filey Holiday Camp was a major factor in Filey's economy. Building began in 1939 and continued during the Second World War when it became an air force station known as RAF Hunmanby Moor. In 1945 it became a popular holiday resort and a new LNER branch line with station was constructed to serve the camp despite the topographical challenges involved. It opened on 10 May 1947 with a performance by the London International Orchestra conducted by Anatole Fistoulari with a performance by acclaimed pianist Solomon. British boxer Bruce Woodcock was convalescing at the Butlin's camp around the same time following his punishing defeat at the hands of Joe Baksi a month earlier. By the late 1950s it could cater for 10,000 holiday makers but closed in 1984, causing a decrease in the holiday makers visiting Filey.
Filey was historically split between the East Riding of Yorkshire and the North Riding of Yorkshire. The boundary ran along Filey Beck, north of the town centre, so that most of the town was in the East Riding. When County Councils were formed by the Local Government Act 1888, the whole of Filey was placed in the East Riding.
Filey also boasts the Grade II listed Langford Villa on The Crescent (c. 1830) which was often chosen by the famous chocolatier Sir Joseph Terry as his place to "summer"; it is situated next door but one to The White Lodge Hotel.
In 2018, the town was featured in the Tour de Yorkshire.
