Mablethorpe

This is an area of caravans, holiday parks & chalets and Mablethorpe does its best to provide entertainment for the many visitors. This takes the form of casinos, bingo halls, amusement arcades, tea rooms and fast food kiosks. At the entrance to the long, sandy beach four donkeys wait stoically for riders. Their keeper stands as bored as they are, checking his phone, at the lack of any punters.

Trusthorpe

Still surrounded by holiday parks with names like Seaside Holiday Park, Holiday Estates & Caravan Park, Leisure Park, the village itself has a line of rather glamorous, windowed beach huts running along the top of the concrete sea defences. The soft, sandy beach is divided in two by a large block of apartments and flats build on a low rocky outcrop. The ever-present arcades and seaside amusements shelter down below the raised promenade which provides protection from the weather and the tides.

Sutton on Sea

Like Miami Beach (yes, believe it!) to the south, this coastal village does not have funfairs or arcades, but it does have the attraction of a long, soft-sandy beach and a quiet, peaceful feel to it.

Anderby Creek

This is a peaceful, tranquil place, away from noise & distraction. A car park gives access to the beach through the dunes. There are a number of caravan parks in the immediate locality

Chapel St Leonards

Beach huts line the curve of Chapel Point which was part of major coastal defences during WWII. Renovations have taken place and it is now a bright, modern village of brick villas and chalets with a traditional seaside feel around the centre. The sandy beach stretches for miles in both directions. Along the coast, south of the village, are numerous holiday parks which are home to hundreds of static caravans.

Ingoldmells

Ingoldmells is a village, although you would never believe it, with a church that dates back to 1200. the village has the largest concentration of static caravans in Europe. In 1936 the UK’s first holiday camp was built here by Billy Butlin. A large Amusement Park opened up in 1995 to cater for the large numbers that came to holiday here and has since built up a variety of rides, attractions and entertainments. The Jubilee Odyssey, the world’s largest roller coaster of its type, dominates the area and can be seen from miles away. Acres of low caravans surround the goddess (female??) of holiday rides and her attendants, paying homage to the screams of excitement that emanate from this complex of amusements and stalls and holiday homes.

Skegness

Skegness was built on the end a long stretch of coast characterised by soft sandy beaches and sea-facing caravan parks which have spread over low, eroding cliffs. Sea defences have been built to protect this traditional seaside resort from the weather that bash it from the east. The ‘old Skegness’ was swallowed by the sea in the 1500s following storms and floods and has now been located about half a-mile out to sea. Only when the railway reached Skegness in 1873 did visitors begin to arrive in large numbers. They were the new day trippers from the working classes, but all there was for them were four hotels, two or three refreshment rooms, the sea and sands and several bathing machines. Work began to build wide, tree-lined streets, promenades and gardens, a park and a pier, as well as a new main shopping street, a church and lots of new houses. In the twenty years between the World Wars, basic amenities were built to establish the town as we see today.

Out to sea the flailing arms of 150 odd wind turbines warn off invaders and wave in welcome to any visitors approaching from that direction. On the land side a tangle of well-used rides, helters & skelters, arcades and neon provide satisfaction for the desire for amusement. Formal gardens with a boating lake line the seafront, which overlooks a 6 km stretch of firm, sandy beach. Each year this slowly increases in size as the sea continues to have an impact on the land.