The British seaside: Dud or dud?

The rest of the place is a shithole, full of shitbags. It's the end of the line from Liverpool Street station - 50 years ago half of East London came down for the weekend and just sort of well, stayed, really. This is of course not a bad thing, but it does have that London suburb small-mindedness about it - regular glassings in locals, tarted up Ford Novas going round and round and round, half- arsed mafiosi linkings.

I was there last weekend and encountered a fight outside the main pub on the seafront.

Shitbag 1: "Fuck off" Shitbag 2: "No, you fuck off" S1: "Fuck off" S2 "FUCK OFF" etc. etc.

Very funny, and very indicative of Clacton. DG, I know what you mean by Frinton, but you can see why when they're next to this place. This may come across as snobbish, and I shouldn't forget that those years were the best years of my life and I met some wonderful people, but I'm so glad I got out. I could handle the generall naffness of the place, but the narrow-mindedness makes me so depressed.

Clacton is Romford with sand.

Neither are as bad as Walton-on-the-Naze, though.

Beer's good, of course, although with a name like that it should have an all-round classic pub and it has no such thing. If you're in the area pop down to Branscombe. But Branscombe has no Peco and once, Peco was King.

x0x0

The whole Whitley Bay / North Shields / Cullercoats conurbation is K- Ace. I like that completely inappropriate Australian-styled cafe tucked into the sea front, totally lashed by the North Sea. Cool.

1. Also memory of giant dragonfly dead in a jar of pickled eggs at the chippie = reason why I have never quite got round to sampling PE since...
2. Also tale heard later, of a neighour walking dog on cliffs one v.early morning, looking out to sea and seeing a GRATE WAVE on the horizon, rushing in. Man stands transfixed w.horror, as wave hurtles towards Seaton, sweeping all the way up the beach over small wall IIRC, before slapping several feet up first row of houses. Much noise and minor damage, no injuries or worse. Wave a national news story following day, a similar occurred all along s.coast (this wd be mid/late 80s I think).

Man had walked dog across beach not five mins before.

Big waves? biggest I've seen were crashing onto the headland at Scarborough, the one that separates north and south bay, they looked lethal, my Mum wouldn't let me get very near.

It's called BORTH!!!

http://completelyinthedark.com/main.php?g2_itemId=12896

Scarborough :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuthbert_Brodrick

v interesting architect

The Leeds Corn Exchange and the Grand Hotel at Scarborough are classic buildings imo

Burgh Island and its magical tide-defeating monster tractor was on Coast, it is definitely real.

Do find it's odd how Coast has made all this sort of thing almost-fashionable again, but still not quite.

i think stuff like The Idler and The Chap and I suppose before them a bunch of twee indie miserabilists have been repping for the British seaside for a good while now but a) semi-ironic nostalgia not really most people's cup of tea and b) the reality of lots of places is just a little too grim to be totally fun times.

i like grim and unironic nostalgia so i'm good tho.

Very good book on This Sort Of Thing by a pal:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51yvVAEBKoL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

6 months living in Hastings/St Leonards cured me of any lingering nostalgie, I have to say.

aren't they full of junkies

Thing is, it depends on if you mean 'the seaside' as in pleasure beach tacky shit type way, or 'the seaside' as in the bit of land that is right next to the sea. Britain has some great moody tempestuous bits of sea.

but seaside as a word definitely implies "tacky" pleasure beach shit and the decayed corpse of the 50s and 60s before society became a hole.

I don't know that it does. Or is there another word you're thinking of, that implies "seaside" as being "bit of land by sea" without that connotation? Because I don't have that automatic assumption. I don't get that automatic association unless I see it used in a phrase like "faded seaside glamour" and the like. It comes from context.

I suppose I like a bit of crumbling maritime heritage, harbour walls being pounded back to nature, piers falling slowly into the sea - but that's because I'm not really one of those people who goes to the sea for "fun in the sun, swimming etc." but I go to the sea for bleakness, windswept desolation, THE SKY IS BIGGER THAN YOU, THE SEA IS BIGGER THAN YOU, time will eat you all up, you are as dust in the wind, oh look on my works ye puny humans and despair.

Because that's what I go to the seaside for, really, not to sit in a canvas deckchair with rose-tinted sunglasses on, reminiscing of parish holidays in the 70s. But then again, I only ever really go to "seaside resorts" in the off season because it's the desolate atmosphere that I like.

Does anyone remember when they tried to revive that CITV show called Knightmare back one summer in the mid-'90s with a one-off Seaside special?

Gameplay was more or less the same - one guy had to walk around the levels while his teammates guided him with instructions from afar, except instead of a large viking helmet he wore an outsized kiss-me-quick hat and carried a stick of rock. Tregard was dressed in a lifejacket and sat quite high up in an adirondack chair, helping the team with cautions like "Warning team, the tide is coming in!" and then you'd hear a ship's horn blow in the distance, a bit like when the hobgoblins would come in the original. I remember they managed to get rid of a fearsome dog walker with "Spellcasting: J-E-L-L-Y-F-I-S-H".

Shame it didn't really take off. My mate reckons they also did a 1978 version where you carried a fondue set and wore a huge permed wig, but I don't believe him.

I think that the connotation of deckchairs and funfairs and sand castles etc is definitely strong with 'seaside', but I can't think of an alternative word for 'bit of land next to the sea'. Maybe just 'sea'? Or 'coast', I guess?

Definitely look for the same thing as you, KDT. The vastness gives me the fear, but in a beautiful way.

xpost no! Are you sure that's real? I've always thought they should revive Knightmare, though. I loved that shit.

Britain has some great moody tempestuous bits of sea.

Well, we are surrounded by the stuff

Coast, yes.

The Coast will do. "Going for a run to the Coast", I'm sure we used to do that on a Sunday back in the day.

"coast" or "seashore" for the Romantic bits. or even "strand" eh? I guess "seaside" is too close to "Oh I Do Like to Be Beside the" for me to shake the resort connotations

... run in the car, in case there's any confusion. When I think of Ayrshire, which is where we used to go a run to, then I think "Coast" not "Seaside"

These are...a thing people associate with the beach? I mean I see that they are from the GIS but I'm just so confused.

Well, the British seaside is often associated with bawdiness (see McGill and other saucy postcards). And it's a popular destination for stag & hen parties. And, uh, you wear hats at the beach to protect you from the sun?

Also, sorry, don't want to detract from this question, which I'm afraid I can't really help with: The Northumberland coast worth a visit?

And, uh, you wear hats at the beach to protect you from the sun?

lol

Really, you have to buy them on a pier for maximum effect.

Just today I went to the Tony Ray-Jones exhibit. Clearly don't make enough of the English seaside

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/~/media/RWSCIM/image_galleries/only_in_england/beachy_head_boat_trip.jpg

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/~/media/RWSCIM/image_galleries/only_in_england/blackpool.jpg

^ Great pics.

I have a book of his photos and I love looking through it. Thing is, a lot of seaside towns had professional photographers who worked the season taking pics of people on the beach, in sandcastle contests, fancy dress costumes, passengers disembarking from ships, seaside queens being crowned etc. The seaside town we used to go to had a guy who did this professionally for about half a century and his best stuff was very similar to Tony Ray-Jones. The archive material across the country must be massive.

dud

v rarely been to The Seaside & not been to the coast much in general. assynt, ullapool, mull, skye are amazing tho, mb the most beautiful bits of the uk

its too cold and everyones all naked

Whenever I travel to Cornwall on the train the coastal stretch of the journey is the bit where I have my face pressed to the window, with all the other children, wowing at the natural beauty after we have just travailed the likes of fucking Doncaster and Birmingham. I think you arrive at Plymouth after this bit, so more realness. I was sad to see it getting taken by the sea, but you have to face up to - places like this are going this decade rather than in geological time.

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSp2YNkA2IfiEW-Aooyqk1AK38uJDTjb8g7u_CoD3L1vFDG7k5xXw

nice to see Damo assign Doncaster its full name

The Jurassic Coast in Dorset is very nice. Durdle Door!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Durdle_Door_Overview.jpg

Posted more images of the train tracks at Dawlish and other images of Cornwall/Devon devastation on this thread:

Monster Waves!

What's terrifying is, this is not just the "main route" to Cornwall. This is the ONLY route to Cornwall. Seeing the folly of Beeching again and again and again.

indeed many places are going under - I live on the coast and was very careful to buy a place that is not at sea level! I found the highest hill in town- there's a be floodin in the future!!

I guess this is the place to post about these submerged forests appearing in Wales and Cornwall?

Sorry for Torygraph link, but a friend linked to it: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/10653204/Submerged-forests-revealed-by-UK-storms.html

Link with pictures: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/pictures-bronze-age-forest-revealed-6730477

http://i4.walesonline.co.uk/incoming/article6730673.ece/ALTERNATES/s1227b/JS32760119-6730673.jpg

Yes yes yes! The submerged forests of Mount's Bay turn up every now and then. The Cornish name for St Michael's Mount is Karrick Loes in Koes which means "the grey rock in the woods" which shows that the bay was above sea level and wooded within Cornish speaking memory.

Forests off Portreath are new though and v v interesting. MAYBE ALL OF LYONESSE WILL RESURFACE. yes.

Bit of Lyonesse. Clearly:

https://twitter.com/Phil_kernow/status/436517602706620416/photo/1

F-me does Cornish speaking memory go deep into the last glacial period? Serious question, not being facetious. Wow ancient forests! That is incredible.

Those are not pre-glaciation forests, as stated in the Telegraph link. They are about 4000 years old which is Bronze age I believe, so yes, Brythonic of some stripe is likely to have been common then, of which Cornish is a surviving branch.

Sorry i was more responding to the image didn't want to click on the link, was only a few thousand years out!

The title of the welsh link says "bronze age" in it! In English, too!

Agan yeth yw nebes koth. Nebes koth, hepken. ;-)

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a82/bobbysixer/tankerton_zps4d8f5a30.jpg

Tankerton-on-Sea earlier today (next to Whitstable)

Trying to plan a holiday this summer that is cheap as hell and involves coastal type action for a 12 yr old kid with autism, kinda struggling, but will get there.

maybe somewhere in Wales, you looking for low stimulation?

Hmm sounds like an option worth looking into. Low stim is not essential, unguarded drops are more of a hazard than the odd sensory overload. Used to rent a cottage in Newquay, but the price kept going up ...

maybe have a look round Barmouth area on the west coast, feel like it's not too cliffy but some nice beaches and probly not crazy expensive

We're just booked a Northumberland coastal holiday that seemed very reasonable. No idea how nice it is going to be - we've heard positive things - but is alongside beaches rather than cliffs. I guess it depends where you are travelling from.

I have the sudden inexplicable desire to go to some godforsaken faded seaside glamour bit of the Essex coast.

Like, Shoeburyness or Walton-on-the-Naze or somewhere. Where has a good pier?

I'm going to yarmouth on Friday who's gonna stop me

Which Yarmouth? I <3 the Isle of Wight Yarmouth but not sure about East Anglia.

Essex walks website recommends me Clacton-on-Sea to Walton-on-the-Naze, 7 mile walk taking in TWO piers. Has anyone done this? It's a sea wall, so it should be pretty much flat, the whole way.

(I confess, half the reason I want to go to Walton-on-the-Naze is the name, and the other half is Tracy Jacks.)

Did you ever do The Broomway?

No, it seemed semi-suicidal to attempt by myself.

Kinda want to do the Saxon church walk on the sea wall at Bradwell (another Macfarlane rec) but the train is quite some way away.

There look to be guided walks.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/apr/15/britains-coastline-captured-in-atmospheric-photos-for-rnli-contest-in-pictures

I'm not a big fan of guided walks, really. They never seem to go at the right speed.

Those are beautiful photos; that last one of Sennen looks like a John Martin painting. Which I guess Sennen often does, in a storm.

"They never seem to go at the right speed."

^ Yes, this.

bb, I mean the norfolk yarmouth, as it's near me. I'll probably wander over to hemsby or somewhere once I've checked in at the hotel.

Can anyone recommend a cottage by the (UK) coast, that might be nice/available towards the end of this month ... ?

budget?

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/3414940?s=rPlF

We'd found somewhere in Norfolk for £400 ... but then it was cancelled to be refurbished.

That does look quite nice.

Sorry djh, I just saw this - I go to the Suffolk coast from time to time, Southwold, Aldeburgh, Orford etc, and there quite a few airbnb places for below £400 if you go out of season.

Was in Rhyll last week. It was like a place just recovering from a nuclear or zombie apocalypse. Sea was out and there's several bits of front between the last houses and the littoral, and it felt desolate and hopeless beyond belief. Only saw one or two other people on the front itself, usually negotiating various awkward bits of front infrastructure (two main roads either side of a promenade, then beach), sitting for about ten minutes at a bus stop as if waiting for a bus out of the place, but then moving on. A couple went into the dark entrance of the otherwise closed looking 'Seaworld' aquarium. An old man on a mobility scooter made incredibly slow progress by the main road.

On the way out passed one of the holiday camp resorts, looking very much generally like military camps, apart from various large cartoon characters on each set of huts giving big thumbs up etc.

I grew up in a Devon seaside town. The British seaside is awful and soul crushing. The coast, on the other hand, is wonderful.

We spent a beautiful week on the north Norfolk coast (Stiffkey); we've just booked a week on the Lincolnshire coast for the first week in January. Have never been to Lincolnshire before (and have never met anyone who has).

So ... if you were in Whitby but finding it a bit impossible (too busy, too difficult to physically distance) where would you go? Seaside/coast would get bonus points but anywhere to avoid people, really? Entertaining a six year old gets more points.

Back to Transylvania?

Not an easy task w/ the kicker of entertaining a child! If Whitby's too busy, Robin Hood's Bay probably will be as well, though there is a pretty long stretch of beach. You could go down the coast a bit further and have a stroll around the amazing Ravenscar Hall hotel (the gardens are free to roam around iirc, last time I was there) and it has amazing views.

Your best bet probably could be the Folling Foss Tea Garden, a really nice tea garden in the forest w/ lots of room for kids to run around or do whatever it is kids do :) And for you to enjoy the sights and nature as well (and some grub). Website is here

*Falling Foss, that is

That looks so idyllic. I cannot possibly express how much I want to be sitting outside a tea room in a forest right now.