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The Penny Hedge
Three tides, or the curse returns.
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- A small woven hedge staked in harbour mud
- Legend from
- Whitby tradition (1159)
- Best time
- Ascension Eve morning
- Tone
- Solemn
A dying hermit's penance: a hedge that must stand three tides, planted every year since 1159.
Every year on Ascension Eve a short woven hedge is planted in the mud of Whitby's Upper Harbour, on the east bank of the River Esk below Church Street. Legend says that in 1159 three hunters chasing a wild boar killed a hermit at Eskdale when he shut his door on their hounds. As he died he forgave them, on condition that they and their descendants built a hedge each year, cut with a knife 'of a penny price', strong enough to stand three tides. In May 2025 the bailiff and hornblower built it again; the horn sounded three times and 'Out on Ye' was cried three times.