England
Craster
A smokehouse village where kippers have been oak-cured in the same sheds since 1856.
Smoke curls from blackened sheds where kippers have been oak-cured over the same brick kilns since 1856. Craster is a fishing village of one pub, one smokehouse and one of the finest coastal walks in England — the clifftop mile to the ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle.
L. Robson & Sons runs the last traditional kipper smokehouse in Craster, curing herring over whitewood shavings and oak in a process unchanged for more than 160 years — the smell reaches you before the village does. The little harbour, built by the Craster family in 1906 as a memorial to a son lost in Tibet, shelters a small crab and lobster fleet whose catch travels no further than the pub above the slipway. The walk north to Dunstanburgh Castle crosses basalt headlands where fulmars nest on the ledges, the fourteenth-century ruin blackening against the North Sea at dusk, while southward the coast path leads to Howick Hall, where Earl Grey tea was first blended for the water of the estate. Beyond smokehouse and pub the village stays small and lightly serviced — its charm is its indifference.
Solo
Craster's scale suits quiet mornings — buy kippers at the smokehouse, walk the headlands, and sit in the castle ruins with fulmars and the sea.
Couple
Walk to Dunstanburgh at dusk as the castle silhouette turns black against the North Sea, then back for kippers and a pint above the harbour.
- The 1856 smokehouse announces itself on the wind before the village appears.
- Empty grassland carries the path to a ruin silhouetted against the North Sea.
- A twenty-boat harbour sends its lobster catch straight up to the pub.
- A small, lightly serviced village where smokehouse and pub set the rhythm.
Craster kippers from L. Robson & Sons — oak-smoked, served whole, bones and all.
Crab sandwiches above the harbour, the castle path starting at the pub door.
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