BFI

Gathering seabirds' eggs at Bempton Cliffs, Flamborough Head on the Yorkshire coast, was a traditional practice for farmers whose land adjoined the cliff edge, which gave them a legal right to supplement their income by selling eggs. The farmer sub-licenced gangs of three or four 'climmers', to gather eggs of the gulls, common guillemot, razorbill and others from the cliff side. It was a perilous business, requiring fitness and skill, but the rewards must have been great - in 1908 such eggs commanded a shilling a dozen (about the same as a hundredweight of coal) and it was estimated that gangs could collect up to 300 or 400 eggs a day in season.

Bryony Dixon

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