Snapshots from Bridlington

Scarborough may have been the first seaside resort in the UK, but Bridlington tourist board will have you know that the first record of surfing in Britain occurred in Brid in 1890. According to local legend, Brothers HRH Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalaniana’ole and HRH Prince David Kawananakoa were studying in the UK and ‘probably made their own surfboards with timber bought from a Bridlington boat-builder’.

Bridlington is on the East Yorkshire coast, south of Scarborough and Filey, and divided from those coastal bays by the magnificent Flamborough Head.

If you arrive here by train you will discover what is possibly the best station refreshment room in England. The Station Buffet is packed with all sorts of interesting paraphernalia and Brief Encounter (1945) springs to mind…

On my previous visit to Brid I called in at the Beside the Seaside museum. In 2016, alas, I found that it had closed, but I have a photo of an exhibit that was housed there in 2009.

Reconstruction of a seaside guest house at Beside the Seaside, 2009

A short walk up the promenade to Sewerby will take you to a Model Village and Tea Gardens. It’s just the kind of attraction that make seaside resorts so special, as if time has stood still, and yet it is still appealing to all generations of customers. I noted that the miniature art shop here is run by an ‘iPad artist’ – a nod to local resident David Hockney.

There are some great examples of seaside architecture in Bridlington, from a building that is deliberately constructed to resemble a boat (complete with mast outside), to the beautifully curved Belvedere Café at the end of the south beach. It has steps wrapped around it’s left side that take you onto a viewing platform on the roof.

Some rather grand houses overlook the sands on the south beach.

And there are some fine examples of beach huts.

If you are looking for a retro treat, Topham’s Ice Cream Parlour (set 1947) is worth a visit. Hot drinks are served in glass mugs here just as they should be, and there are banoffee sundaes and knickerbocker glories on the menu. 

When I was in there, an elderly gentleman wearing a suit, and pinned with an enormous badge reading ‘Sweet Sixteen’ came in. A member of staff exclaimed, “You look very dapper today”, and the gentleman started singing. I didn’t bother going to see the show at the Spa; I had my entertainment for the price of an ice cream...

   

Melton Mowbray - Rural Capital of Food and Two-Headed Beasties

"Is it true they eat their first born?" asked a passenger to the bus driver on the way to the rural capital of food – Melton Mowbray. I was on the no.19 bus from Nottingham and the pair were making banter about the driver being a Melton local who enjoyed his job because it meant he could get away from the place, whereas the passenger was buying a ticket to get there.

Melton was the original place where the town was 'painted red' by drunken revellers, and if you have any doubts about Melton's tourism credentials, then they should be confirmed by knowing that a very well known hotel chain has built somewhere for you to stay just a stone’s throw away from the cattle market. 

The 'food capital' is Melton Mowbray's tourism tag and it was on Tuesday's market day that I caught my bus there.

The livestock market is an unusual experience to the outsider. The auction chant and bidding is a bizarre and interesting form of communication to the outsider, and all sorts of animals are sold here from small birds, to rabbits, chickens, doves, turkeys, geese, sheep, calves and cattle.

If you don't fancy going home with a crate of fowl then you can buy a Hambleton Bakery loaf or a piece of locally made Stilton cheese. Melton is one of the few places in England where this cheese is produced.

I tried some of the latter when I had lunch at Miss B's cafe. While I was there I overheard that this lovely place is going to close, but there's also a Miss B's deli in town that's going to remain open, so I imagine they will be selling the Stilton platter there too.

Dickinson and Morris are the most well known pork pie makers here. Their shop is one of the popular tourist stopping points. If you don't eat meat, go and look at the pie shop sculpture in the front window.

In Derek Jones’s butcher's I bought a pie dolly, so that I can have a go at making one of my own 'hand raised' pies at home.

Here are some of the other interesting and quirky things you might see as you walk around Melton Mowbray:

The Regal Cinema: How great to see a local cinema still operating in a small town. The inside is just as lovely as the outside and it has a very big screen.

The bread ‘trap’ at Egerton Lodge residential home: This small opening was originally used to hand out pieces of bread to the poor. A plaque above the gate says that it used to be part of a building which is ‘now’ occupied by Woolworths. I think the sign needs updating…

I found this sculpture in the memorial gardens outside Egerton Lodge:

Anne of Cleves pub: So named because the building was 'gifted to Anne of Cleves by Henry VIII as part of their divorce settlement' (from the pub’s website). Better than a beheading I'll say...

One thing you mustn't miss on your trip to Melton, however, is a visit to the Carnegie Museum.

The displays about the local cheese trade are interesting, but the most remarkable exhibit is that of the ‘two-headed calf’. 

Born in 1900 the ‘two calves in one skin’ didn't live for long, but after taxidermy became a fund-raiser at Melton cattle market for the Red Cross in both World Wars. You probably won't find any two-headed calves at the livestock market today but you can buy a souvenir postcard of Melton's most famous calf at the museum to send to your friends and relatives back home... 

A Visit to Great Yarmouth

Seaside towns have long been the place for unusual or eccentric attractions. The types of exhibits and collections that were also part of the travelling fairground. Take for example, the infamous Rector of Stiffkey – the defrocked clergyman who ended up being mauled by a lion in a sideshow at Skegness.

Madame Tussauds at Blackpool has kept up to date for its holidaymakers by including likenesses of Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift. The Louis Tussauds Waxworks at Great Yarmouth, however, was looking more than tired by the time of its closure in 2013, with its replicas of Kojak, Mr Blobby and Samantha Fox.

The House of Wax, Great Yarmouth before it closed

 

The House of Wax in 2016 - now closed

If you are visiting Great Yarmouth then I would highly recommend visiting the Time and Tide Museum. Converted from an old herring smoke house, this place has a reconstruction of an old Yarmouth row (a narrow pedestrian lane with houses and shops), a seaside gallery, and information on the area's fishing industry.

The Hippodrome Museum is also open to visitors after performances at the circus.

Before you leave Great Yarmouth, you must make sure that you pay a visit to The David Howkins Museum of Memories. Admissions here go to charity, and at the time of my visit (2016) only cost £3 for an adult, and £1 for children. The contents of the museum are eclectic. Some its exhibits look like small personal collections – such as the cluster of Murano Glass clowns (familiar tourist souvenirs from the latter half of the twentieth century), and some Royal memorabilia. There are also some dolls houses (not antiques), and rooms full of teddies and dolls.

A fairground Aunt Sally - see if you can knock the clay pipe from her face...

Of particular interest however, are the Stamp Room and the Joseph Merrick display. The latter includes a bust of Merrick, which is a replica of a plaster cast taken of his head, kept in the London Hospital where he spent the last few years of his life. Visitors can buy a booklet about the ‘Elephant Man’ at the museum. The curator is keen to point out that the ‘true’ story of the Elephant Man is that the showman Tom Norman was Merrick’s colleague and friend, and that, contrary to the David Lynch feature film, Merrick tired of the medical inspections instigated by the film’s ‘hero’, Frederick Treve. Joseph Merrick’s skeleton has still not been buried, and it has recently been mooted that his remains should be returned to his original birthplace, Leicester (in a similar vein to Richard III’s).

The member of staff on duty at the Museum of Memories was very eager for me to go to the first floor to see the Stamp Room. This is a room with furniture and artifacts completely covered in postage stamps. This display was created by Albert Schafer who spent over 30 years fulfilling this self-imposed challenge.

The museum is housed in an impressive building that used to be the local gas showroom. You can walk a grand staircase – lit by a huge stained glass window – leading up to the former gas offices on the first floor, which now house the Stamp Room and toys. As you leave, you can buy a genuine seaside postcard from the 1950s as a souvenir.

The Museum of Memories is memorably eccentric and unique.

For more information on the museum look here