Everything about Skegness totally explained
Skegness is a
seaside town and
civil parish within the
East Lindsey district of
Lincolnshire,
England. Located along the
Lincolnshire coast of the
North Sea, it's east of the city of
Lincoln, and has a total resident population of 18,910. Grid reference: TF564636.
Skegness is perhaps best known as the location of the first
Butlins holiday resort, built in 1936, which remains within the area to this day, and in this capacity, remains one of the more famous
seaside resorts in the
United Kingdom.
History
Early history
The name indicates that Skegness has its origin in the
Danish period of settlement in England. Although it has been suggested that it looks like a foot, a hypothetical
Viking responsible for establishing the earliest settlement on this location, it's much more likely to have derived from words which appear in modern
Danish as
skæg, beard and
næs, nose or in geographical terms,
headland.
Lying within the
historic county boundaries of
Lincolnshire from a very early time, for governance, the parish of Skegness was in the Marsh division of the ancient
Candleshoe Wapentake in the
Parts of Lindsey.
Longshore drift carries particles of sediment southwards along the
Lincolnshire coast but at Skegness, the sand settles out in banks (
tombolos) which run at a slight angle to the coast forming the beard. The slightly elevated
dune land sheltered the small natural harbour which the Danes found behind the banks. The finer sediment drifts on to find a home in the mud of
The Wash, beyond
Gibraltar Point.
In August 1642, a consignment of arms and money, probably raised by Queen
Henrietta Maria, in the
Netherlands for the support of King
Charles I's campaign in the
Civil War, was forced into Skegness by the ships of the Parliamentarian
Earl of Warwick.
Skegness was primarily a fishing village and small port until the arrival of the
railway in
1875.
The land was part of the
Earl of Scarborough's estate and he, or his agent H.V.Tippet saw that the extensive sandy beach could be made attractive to holidaymakers from the industrial towns of the English Midlands, a clientele already developed by
Thomas Cook. He planned the town as a resort from 1877 and it expanded rapidly, but along with many other UK resorts, especially those on the cold
North Sea, it lost out to the cheap
package holiday boom which opened up Spain (in particular) to the average holidaymaker after
World War II currency restrictions were lifted and travellers could leave the UK with more than 50 pounds.
Ingoldmells, the parish to the north of Skegness, was the site of the UK's first Holiday Camp, started by
Billy Butlin in 1936.
Butlin's is still there today, in modern dress, at the north end of the town, on the road to Ingoldmells.
Skegness had a 1,843 foot (562 metre) long pier which was opened on
Whit Monday 1881, at that time it was the fourth longest in England. Steamboat trips ran from the pier to The Wash and
Hunstanton in
Norfolk from
1882 until
1910. In 1919, it was damaged by a drifting ship and it took twenty years to raise the money to fully repair it. Again in
1978, the pier was badly damaged and considerably shortened; this time by severe
gales. The pier has since undergone major refurbishment and is now once again a thriving tourist attraction, although it no longer extends far seaward of the high tide line.
Present day
In March 2005, Skegness took the top spot in a survey by
Yours magazine, looking at the best retirement places in the UK.
Yours researchers visited sixty likely towns, and factors involved in judging included house prices, hospital waiting lists, the crime rate, council tax rates, activities and attractions, weather patterns and ease of transport. It has also been described by
Lonely Planet's Great Britain guide as "everything you could want" in a seaside resort.
Tourist Industry
Today the town's tourist industry mainly caters for
working-class holiday-makers and day-trippers from
Leicester,
Lincoln,
Nottingham and other areas of the
East Midlands.
Skegness has been dubbed "the
Blackpool of the East Coast" or "skeggy", and has a famous mascot, the
Jolly Fisherman
(designed by
John Hassall in 1908 for the
Great Northern Railway), and a slogan -
Skegness is so bracing - a reference to the chilly prevailing north-easterly winds that can and frequently do blow off the
North Sea.
The town is popularly known as
Skeg,
Skeggy,
Costa del Skeg or
Skegvegas. Further up the coast are the other holiday resorts of
Mablethorpe,
Sutton-on-Sea,
Ingoldmells and
Chapel St Leonards.
Thomas Baron a regular on the Skeggy scene recently described Skegness as the "place dreams are made of"
Shopping
Lumley Road is the main shopping area, with plenty of fish and chip shops and pubs. There are large
Morrisons and
Tesco supermarkets in the centre of the town near the railway station, and a
Co-op in the
Hildreds Centre shopping area.
There are also seasonal shops selling cheap ways to entertain oneself, such as
kites and buckets-and-spades.
Leisure
The seafront teems with a variety of ways for visiting tourists to spend their money. The main strip of road along the beach is a
kaleidoscope of neon and flashing lights advertising
arcade machines,
slot machines, fairground rides,
crazy golf,
fish-and-chip shops and various bars.
On
16 August 2007, a huge fire hit an entertainment complex on the Skegness front, no one was injured but the severity of the fire meant that the complex had to be demolished. There are many rumours circulating as to what could be built on the site but the owners plan to release details in 2008.
Health
Skegness Hospital is on Dorothy Avenue. In October 2005, the
East Lincolnshire Primary Care Trust closed the Scarborough Ward at
Skegness Hospital as part of a package of money-saving measures. Locals were outraged by the decision, because the ward represented about a third of the hospital's entire capacity and also provided
palliative care. Campaigners marched through the streets and held up the traffic, then later called for the resignations of the PCT board members after they turned down a £100,000 donation offered by East Lindsey District Council to enable the ward to remain open through the winter. The PCT said the donation would "impinge" on its duties, and could be considered "unlawful" if accepted. The ward re-opened in 2006 and began operating to its previous capacity again.
The town also has two large GP practices, a nurse lead community mental health team, providing long-term and short-term care and a PCT health centre. The latter being on Cecil Avenue.
Education
Infant schools
Skegness Infant School
Seathorne Primary School
Richmond Primary School
Secondary schools
Skegness Grammar School on Vernon Road.
Colleges
Skegness College of Vocational Training
Places of interest
Beach
The long wide award-winning sandy beach features a fine herd of donkeys for riding.
Fairy Dell
On the southern foreshore sits a popular family attraction, the Fairy Dell paddling pool. Closed by the district council because of health and safety fears in 2004, the pool soon became the centre of controversy as people from Skegness, elsewhere in the country and as far afield as Australia voiced their dismay at the loss of such a time-honoured free facility. Taxpayers and town councillors joined forces with the local press to campaign for the Fairy Dell to be reopened, and the district council gave way to public pressure and promised to have it back in operation by summer 2006.
On 22 May 2006, the Fairy Dell re-opened following a major refurbishment during which many improvements were made to the pool such as clean-filtered water and extra water features. (External Link)
Other
To the south of the town is Gibraltar Point, a nature reserve on the northern limit of The Wash.
The town is also a major centre for bowls
Annual world's premier Meccano exhibition is staged in the Embassy Theatre, on the Grand Parade by the seafront.
Botton's Pleasure Beach, featuring roller coasters, mini merry-go-round (the Gallopers), dodgems and many traditional and modern rides
Annual spectacular end-of-season firework display.
Transport Links
Roads
The A52 passes through the town from Boston to Mablethorpe and the A158 takes people from Lincoln to Skegness.
Railway
The town is served by Skegness railway station, which is the terminus for the Grantham to Skegness Line. Trains run the full lengh of this and the Nottingham to Grantham Line to give direct fast convenient connections to the East Midlands.
Nottingham, Grantham, Boston and Sleaford have direct connections, while popular places such as Leicester, Derby, Lincoln and Kettering are only one change.
After East Midlands Trains took over the franchise of trains running from the town's station, the company announced that they'd also be running a rail service to London from 2009.
Airfield
Fine beaches link the coastal towns, and there are many large caravan parks in the surrounding countryside. One caravan park a short distance to the north of the town has its own airfield, with a 755 metre grass runway. Visiting pilots can call the airfield on 132.425 MHz, although PPR (Prior Permission Required) is stated for landing. A number of years ago, pleasure flights used to operate from the aerodrome.
Sport
Speedway racing was staged at the stock car racing stadium near to the town. The Skegness Braves failed to operate for a full season in both attempts to operate there.
Media
The resort is served primarily by three local newspapers - the Skegness Standard, Skegness Citizen and Skegness Target.
The Skegness Target is a free newspaper when copies are delivered to homes, which they regularly are each week, but it's a paid-for newspaper when copies are bought from retail outlets such as stores and gas stations.
The Skegness Standard is always a paid-for newspaper and the Skegness Citizen is a free newspaper which is delivered to homes. A little known fact is that Neil Wallis, ex Editor of the SUN, and PEOPLE, currently Deputy Editor of the News of the World, an ex resident of Tarran Way, and pupil at Skegness Grammar School, started his journalistic career in the '60s on the Skegness Standard
Further Information
Get more info on 'Skegness'.
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