MARSDON BAY, a small bay on the coast of Durlham; 2½ miles SE of the mouth of the river Tuyne. Marsdon Rocks here are a wild assemblage of freestone masses. These rocks, says Grant, "shattered by storms, have parted, from age to age, with vast fragmeuts that stand in every variety of grotesque form and combination, pillars and tombs and towers, ramparts and huge bridges, and trinmphal arches, through the black green hollow of which the billows roar and dash." One of them, called by pre-eminence the Marsdon Rock, and lying 270 feet from the shore, is pierced with a lofty arch, under which boats can pass. A public house, called the Grotto, with large quaint rooms excavated out of the live rock, is at the foot of a cliff at the shore, is approached by a narrow flight of steps down the cliff, and is a favourite resort of picnic parties.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))