Scarborough History : Battle Ground of the Roundhead and Cavaliers 1566 - 1666

Through Elizabethan and Stuart times, the townsmen were always petitioning monarchs and their ministers for help in maintaining the piers. New levies were devised, but the interruptions of war too often brought the town's economy to its knees. Elizabeth granted money, timber and iron for new harbour construction but in a decade or two, the burgesses were back again asking for more.

Lord Burghley supported their claims in 1605, that the town was ruined and pitifully depopulated. When the small village of Seamer nearby revived its ancient market, complete collapse threatened. Trade dried up. The Wolds farmers found Seamer just as good as Scarborough's market, and despite opposition townsmen moved to the smaller place. In the end the burgesses prevailed in the Courts, but only after a sustained depression.

In the meantime, a new development had begun which was to transform the prospects of the town. Around 1626, a Mrs Farrow, wife of a town bailiff, tasted the waters of a small spring running from below the cliff onto the sea sand of the South Bay. She found that it had curative properties, and the waters acquired local fame.

The early years of this century had been renewed outbreaks of plague and other epidemic diseases, and ill health was part of the daily life of many people, poor and wealthy alike. The arrival of visitors to the spaw seeking good accommodation was to revolutionise the old inns of the town. Whilst visitors still stayed in the merchant houses of the lower town, it was the Old Globe Inn, conveniently placed for Merchant's Row, which gained much of the trade.