Some of the less-loved and gently crumbling British resorts still teem with hidden pleasures, for those who care to look
Look carefully around less-loved, gently crumbling resorts such as Rhyl, Bognor and Skegness and they are still teeming with hidden pleasures– 126 this year – ranked according to hotel quality and prices, food and drink, attractions, shopping, scenery. The top slots are inevitably occupied by smaller, smarter places visited by the better-off, probably before or after a trip to France or Crete. The bottom, though, is far more interesting.
Building Fleetwood was costly. Hesketh-Fleetwood sold off his lands in Blackpool and Southport – allowing those towns to develop in their own distinctive manners. Burton chose the sandy tump of Top Hill – renamed The Mount – as the focal point of the town, with streets radiating out from it. Period houses still stand on Mount Street and Warren Street.
Thus was born a Wales of the imagination – a land of pleasure and the picturesque. The tradition is deep. English tourists visited Wales from around 1770– mountain scenery and waterfalls – and romantic sites such as St Winefride’s Well and ruinous Norman castles. Later the gaze shifted to the coast. An 1837 guide reports Rhyl, an “enclosed common” a few years ago, is “rapidly rising”. Abel Heywood, in his, sees a “fashionable watering place”.
Like everywhere else, Skegness has lots of barber’s shops. But none appear to have cashed in on the town’s beardy heritage. The name derives from Skeggi, Old Norse for “bearded one”; the Gísla Saga recounts how, despite wielding a sword called Warflame, had first his leg and then his head chopped off. As for Skegness, well it has kept its Skeg but lost its ness – the headland, which may have resembled a beard, and was once protected by offshore barrier islands.
In the second world war, Canadian and Norwegian soldiers were based in the town; Kings Beach Hotel in Pagham became known as “Little Norway”. Fifty Mulberry harbours – as used in the D-day landings – were assembled between Pagham beach and Selsey. The wreck of one that failed to be raised can still be seen at low tide and is a
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