Scarborough
Scarborough's a funny kind of place, there's really no other way to describe it.
It's positively schizophrenic in character but all the more interesting for it.
The main trouble is that it has two bays, a North Bay and a South Bay, the two of them
separated by a headland topped with the remains of the castle. And these two bays
have characters so dissimilar you wouldn't think they were part of the same town.
Scarborough was actually (and arguably) Britain's first seaside resort and it still
retains much of its Victorian grandeur. It also had the distinction of being bombarded
by the German Navy in WWI as they tried to lure the British Grand Fleet into a trap.
South Bay
The South Bay is like a downmarket version of Blackpool if that's possible. It has
amusements, kiss me quick hats, lots of fish n' chip eating slobs and a small beach
which is really a poor thing compared to the magnificent Filey Bay. It hasn't yet
got a blue flag like Filey and the North Bay, but it looks to be getting there.
That's a miracle in itself as in the early 80's the water board planned to dump
semi-treated sewage down a 700m pipe off Scarborough. The plan was eventually shelved
after fierce resistance from the local group "Sons of Neptune", though the water
board claimed it was "geological problems" that caused it to be shelved. Such an idea would
never be contemplated nowadays which shows just how long a way we've come in the
last quarter century.
Maybe that's being a bit hard on the area, for there are some nice bits of the South Bay,
trouble is they're dominated by that central stretch of chav tat.
There's a small harbour which still operates commercially and gets some reasonably
large vessels in. There's a museum and small funfair, but mainly there's people
eating.
If you walk along the beach to the South it gets nicer as you come to the SPA complex.
This is an absolutely majestic victorian complex which is well worth looking round.
During the Summer, the SPA orchestra perform two concerts a day in the Grand Hall,
which really does live up to its name. Definitely worth a visit. You'll also see
the suspension bridge which used to be popular as a venue for ending it all, but
fortunately nowadays has good tall railings.
Continuing South there's some really pretty paths leading out of the town. In fact
it's a part of the Cleveland Way long distance footpath and the clifftop walk from
Scarborough to Filey is an exquisite gem. Directions are simple, allow half a day
and follow the coast path South till you reach filey.
The North Bay
Better known as the civilised end of town. This is largely devoted to Peasholm Park,
a traditional municipal park with a boating lake and a rather good miniature steam
railway. The lake itself is interesting, because during the main season they still
recreate the WWII Battle of the River Plate with model warships. I remember seeing
this about forty years ago, and being really impressed. Model ships about twenty
foot long, lots of smoke and bangs, and of course the Germans losing. I suspect
I might be less impressed today and I'm really not sure today's generation of kids
would be quite as enthralled as I was.
The railway's good fun and comes out at Scalby Ness where the Sea Life
Centre is. The Sea Life Centre is, well, a Sea Life Centre. If you've seen one you've
seen them all. Above the park are a set of small amusement parks which are safe, good
fun for kids and worth a visit.
There used to be an absolutely fantastic outdoor swimming pool called the "Atlantis
Water Park". It had unbelievable water slides and was really exciting. Unfortunately that was closed down
and replaced by a few poxy fairground rides. Long-term the site will probably become part
of the "Sands" development - which appears to be a plan to cover the most scenic part of the North
Bay with hundreds of spectacularly ugly buy-to-let holiday flats plus a collection of garish beach huts.
Click here
for a picture of what's been lost.
To be fair to the council they tried to install a cracking modernistic
sculpture called "The Wave" along the sea wall, though due to local opposition to
it and cost overruns the project had to be abandoned. Talking of cost-overruns, I don't think they'd want reminding about
the major cock-up they made in rebuilding the sea wall. A near 100% cost overrun,
an illegally awarded contract to begin with and then an abortive attempt at suppressing
the report which documented the whole sorry farce.
Scarborough Town
I like Scarborough town very much indeed. It has a very great deal going for it.
It's a mediaeval layout, which itself is probably based on an even older layout
and it has to cope with the weird geography of having two bays. It really is easy
to get lost and there's a surprise round every corner, but best of all it's totally
unpretentious. Loads of good little shops, loads of great pubs and no shortage
of places to eat. I guess the only downside is that it's awfully hilly so not so
good for the old folk. There's a typical ruined Norman castle (motte and bailey,
keep, English Heritage etc) which dominates the town. Or rather it doesn't, because
of the peculiar geography it
can be quite hard to find. Like I said, it's an easy
place to get lost in. There's a lot of grand hotels and large terraces which make
the place a pleasure to wander around, but if you're looking for interior design
emporia, designer clothes shops and rubbish like that you'd be better off
elsewhere.
here's also a rather good auction house
where I once bought a rather lovely mid 19th century Italian duelling pistol. It shot beautifully
too. Just as an aside, here's how crazy British firearms law is. You can buy an antique
gun without a licence, take it home and hang it on the wall. If you then want to shoot
it you need to go through the bureaucratic nightmare of adding it to a firearm certificate
and keep it locked up in a steel cabinet. When you tire of shooting it you
tell the police to take it off your firearm certificate and you can hang it on the
wall again. Couldn't make it up if you tried.
Transport Links
Transport links are good. The main route in being from York which is now a pretty
fast route all the way. In the 70's there were notorious bottlenecks at Tadcaster,
York and Malton but all now have bypasses. For a prettier route you come up Sutton
Bank and across the bottom edge of the North York Moors through Helmsley and Pickering.
It's slower but prettier.
There's a really fast cheap bus from Leeds called The Yorkshire Coastliner.
The journey takes
about two and three quarter hours, you don't need to book, services
are frequent and it only costs around eleven quid return. In fact services
run to all the main places on the East coast so it can make for a really relaxing day out.
If you fancy the train, that takes about 1 hour 20 from Leeds and costs about twice
as much as the bus. No doubt you can get a cheaper fare than that if you have a
super-adult-family-day-earlybird-easyrider rail card signed with the blood
of your firstborn child and can spend three days or so studying the pricing structure.