ARCHAEOLOGISTS are to investigate the site where Captain Cook’s Endeavour was built, ahead of a £500,000 project to transform a nationally important early Victorian locomotive shed.

Scarborough Borough Council has given permission for the grade II listed Engine Stable at Whitby Station to be converted into a gallery displaying the work of 11 artists and an 80-seater restaurant with conference facilities.

But councillors said before building could begin a programme of archaeological work needed to be undertaken at the site, where it is believed Thomas Fishburn built scores of rigged vessels, including HMS Endeavour in 1764 and built HMS Resolution in 1770.

Fishburn’s Shipyard was closed in 1830 to make way for the terminus of the Whitby and Pickering Railway in 1836.

Archaeologists believe ground-disturbance at the site may reveal clues about the Great Ayton-raised explorer’s three voyages to the Pacific Ocean.

They say the former dock could retain artefacts of the 18th Century shipbuilding industry in Whitby, which saw the development of particularly stout vessels that could be easily beached.

The investigation could further understanding of how the Whitby-built ships enabled Captain Cook to achieve the first recorded European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, and the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.

The gallery project, which is being led by Terry Hodgkinson, the former chairman of Forward Yorkshire, will lead to 23 full-time and 17 part-time jobs being created at the Windsor Terrace attraction.

Mr Hodgkinson said: "It will be one of the biggest galleries in North Yorkshire, if not the biggest."

The development will include a 10ft-high platform, known as the Whitby Plinth, inspired by the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, London, with a supporting column will be painted like a stick of rock to let visitors know they have reached the seaside.

English Heritage has backed the scheme, which is expected to attract about 18,500 visitors annually, as it will provide a “sustainable future for the vacant nationally important heritage asset”, which was built in 1847.

Mr Hodgkinson hopes to open the venue next spring, at the same time as the North Yorkshire Moors Railway completes its £1.4m development of a second platform at the station.

Numerous attempts over the past decade to develop the building have failed, including proposals to convert it into terraced housing and to create a centre dedicated to Captain Cook.