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East Ayton is steeped in history and Cloggers Cottage has been at the heart of that for over three centuries. The village church, less than 100m along the road dates from the 1100s.

The cottage was built as a stables and coach house in the 1700s; the wide doorframe was necessary to allow the coaches to pass through. The bedrooms were originally stables for the three horses that worked on the coach, the present conversion maintains the appearance of the three stable doors. The lounge and kitchen were home to the coach and the footman who maintained it.

This old coach house was the first place outside Scarborough to be granted a hackney horse-drawn carriage licence to travel through Forge Valley. The upper class and celebrities of the day regarded the coach as the ultimate in stylish transport, on Sundays they would round off a sedate drive along Forge Valley with drinks in the Denison Arms, still the village local for today's residents! Local history suggests that Dick Turpin stayed at the Denison Arms. When spotted through the tiny attic window in the middle of our photo he ran accross East Ayton's fields to make a fateful escape to York where he was captured and hung.

In the 1800s the cottage became a clogger’s workshop, supplying surrounding villages with the latest in footwear - leather clogs. Between 1905 and the 1950s the cottage was home to a bicycle repair shop, servicing penny-farthings. Bikes could be bought and hired from the shop at the front of the property. History was made when the free wheel was invented in our front room but unfortunately the inventors were unable to patent their invention. The sign above the shop in our photo is for 'Forge Valley Cycle Depot', the shop also advertises 'Royal Daylight Lamp Oil'.