THE village of Marske-by-the-Sea has a name that should send you running for your wellies.

We say this, for Marske meant in Old English ‘At the Marshes’. And from this, we learn that this stretch of coast had, in the seventh or eighth century when the name was first given, a strip of salt marshland that ran alongside.

Now marshes in general and salt marshes in particular hardly make for ideal farming, and many of today’s farmers would throw up their hands in despair at the thought of earning their living off such land. But the original inhabitants of the Marshes had ready fuel for their fires: peat was burnt regularly in the north of England in the early Middle Ages.

Bog butter – an extraordinary concoction of curdled milk left to mature in the slimy water – would always have been on the table, though it would have been a salty variety, while Bog Myrtle flowers would have flavoured alcoholic beverages.