Located on the sea wall, the trail of a series of installed 31 polished, sandblasted and reverse-etched Premium Black granite porthole storyboards along Scarborough’s Marine Drive, manufactured for the Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre, tells the story of Scarborough’s history.

The idea for the project came about from the Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre in 2019, and were consequently awarded £40,000 by the National Lottery Heritage Fund at the start of 2022.

Also involved with the project was the Archaeological and Historical Society and the Scarborough & District Civic Society with permission to use the sea wall given by Scarborough Borough Council.

Each ‘Porthole in Time’ tells a small part of Scarborough’s rich and varied history. People walking the trail can learn more via a smartphone ‘App’ or  website to get more details on each of the Portholes. Local residents and visitors, together with students from local schools, helped select the historical topics to feature in the project.

IP Surfaces collated all of the original designs and artwork, collaborating closely with Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre, and reproduced them for their CNC production techniques of reverse etching and sandblasting the Premium Black granite polished portholes including meticulous hand-crafted attention to detail by the IP Surfaces team.

Project Manager, Huw Roberts, a Trustee of the Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre, commented at the time of installation: “This is great news for Scarborough, and its residents and visitors. Whatever was happening in history, ancient or modern, Scarborough has been up there making the news and contributing to one of the most fascinating and unique heritages of any town in Britain.”

The trail of the 31 information portholes was installed in November 2022 and inaugurated by local award-winning playwright Sir Alan Ayckbourn on 6th December 2022.