Loftus is on the borders of the Cleveland mining
district, and it is for this reason that the town has grown to a
considerable size. But although the miners' new cottages are
unpicturesque, and the church only dates from 1811, the situation is
pretty, owing to the profusion of trees among the houses, has
railway-sidings and branch-lines running down to it, and on the hill
above the cottages stands a cluster of blast-furnaces. In daylight they
are merely ugly, but at night, with tongues of flame, they speak of the
potency of labour. I can still see that strange silhouette of steel
cylinders and connecting girders against a blue-black sky, with silent
masses of flame leaping into the heavens.
It was long before iron-ore was smelted here, before even the old
alum-works had been started, that Skinningrove attained to some sort of
fame through a wonderful visit, as strange as any of those recounted by
Mr. Wells. It was in the year 1535--for the event is most carefully
recorded in a manuscript of the period--that some fishermen of
Skinningrove caught a Sea Man.
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