A painting of the Fish-Sands by K. Griffin.

The town remains most famous for its quaint but probably inaccurate legend that during the Napoleonic war its inhabitants, the local fishermen and women of the Headland  now often referred  to as “Crofters” summarily hung, after a long trial ? a monkey washed up on the Fish Sands,  in the belief that it was a French Spy, as it could not speak nor understand the local "Crofters "  Authentic  Hartlepool  Gibberish.
 
Hartlepudlians, or Codheads, like  myself ,  are still known  around the world, as “monkey-hangers”).  
 The above oil painting I recently purchased at a local auction