However, it is possible the author knew of Robin Hood's Bay, and sought to tie the story he wrote to the Scarborough area to explain and justify the name.

Louis I, Count of Flanders, wrote a letter to King Edward III in which he complained that Flemish fishermen together with their boats and catches were taken by force to Robyn Oeds Bay.

"Robin Hoode Baye" was mentioned by Leland in 1536 who described it as,[6] "A fischer tounlet of 20 bootes with Dok or Bosom of a mile yn length.

[8] In the 16th century, Robin Hood's Bay was a more important port than Whitby, it is described by a tiny picture of tall houses and an anchor on old North Sea charts published by Waghenaer in 1586 and now in Rotterdam's Maritime Museum.

[9] The village, which consists of a maze of tiny streets, has a tradition of smuggling, and there is reputed to be a network of subterranean passageways linking the houses.

Vessels from the continent brought contraband which was distributed by contacts on land and the operations were financed by syndicates who made profits without the risks taken by the seamen and the villagers.

[10] A pitched battle between smugglers and excise men took place in the dock over 200 casks of brandy and geneva (gin) and 15 bags of tea in 1779.

[13] A plaque in the village records that a brig named "Visiter" ran aground in Robin Hood's Bay on 18 January 1881 during a violent storm.

In order to save the crew, the lifeboat from Whitby was pulled 6 miles (9.7 km) overland by 18 horses, with the 7-foot (2.1 m) deep snowdrifts present at the time cleared by 200 men.

The road down to the sea through Robin Hood's Bay village was narrow and had awkward bends, and men had to go ahead demolishing garden walls and uprooting bushes to make a way for the lifeboat carriage.

[18] Robin Hood's Bay was part of the chapelry of Fylingdales in the Liberty of Whitby Strand which was a wapentake in the North Riding of Yorkshire.

Robin Hood's Bay is the setting for the Bramblewick novels (Three Fevers, Phantom Lobster, Foreigners, Sally Lunn, Master Mariner and Sound of the Sea) by Leo Walmsley (1892–1966), who was educated in the schoolroom of the old Wesleyan Chapel, in the lower village.

[24] In 1948, LIFE magazine ran a story of an unknown Poison Penman who had been writing spiteful anonymous letters to the inhabitants of Robin Hood's Bay since 1928.

[26] The 2017 film Phantom Thread starring Daniel Day-Lewis features a number of Robin Hood's Bay locations, including the classic interior of the Victoria Hotel and the clifftops above the village.

[27] Missing in Time, a novel by Catherine Harriott, is set in Robin Hood's Bay and contains references and descriptions of local history, geography and culture.