Cook was born in 1728 in a cottage in Marton, now a suburb of Middlesbrough; the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum stands in Stewart Park on the site.
Great Ayton
The family moved to Aireyholme Farm under Roseberry Topping when James was eight. He was schooled in the village in a building that is now the Captain Cook Schoolroom Museum, and his mother and five siblings are buried in the churchyard. The monument on Easby Moor above the village was raised in 1827.
Staithes
At sixteen Cook was apprenticed to a grocer and haberdasher in Staithes, where he first saw the sea. The shop was lost to the waves; the Staithes Heritage Centre tells the story.
Whitby
In 1746 Cook moved to Whitby as an apprentice to the Quaker shipowner John Walker, learning his trade on the colliers that carried coal to London. The Captain Cook Memorial Museum is Walker's house on Grape Lane, and all four of Cook's expedition ships, including Endeavour, were Whitby-built colliers. His statue stands on the West Cliff beside the whalebone arch.
The Cleveland Way links Great Ayton, the monument and the coast
The Esk Valley line stops at Great Ayton and Whitby
