The Faery Folklorist stumbled on the name when it appeared on tourist information, and could find no fairy legend about the caves in the folklore books. An oral history on the Tyne and Wear Museums website quotes a woman recalling that there was the Fairy's Cave and the Smuggler's Cave. That suggests the name was in everyday use and was not invented for tourists.
Icy Sedgwick adds newspaper detail. A Shields Daily News piece of 18 February 1925 refers to a cave nearly 150 feet long in the middle of the bay as the Fairies' Cave. In 1928 a body, that of Elgar William Harrison, was found in the smuggler's cave known as "fairies hall"; the coroner found he had drowned and been washed in, though there seem to have been doubts about how he came to be in the water. Lloyd Reed notes several other caves, including one bricked up at the end of the small promenade and another east of the south pier described as a smuggler's cave in 1823.
Sedgwick wonders whether smugglers encouraged the supernatural names to keep people away, as has been suggested for the Tynemouth cave nearby. Nothing recorded says what the fairies were supposed to do. Cullercoats Bay is a tidal beach, so check tides before exploring the caves.
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