It's like déjà vu, all over again

In those optimistic years of 2007/08 a Ferris wheel stood large and proud on Bridlington's north shore fun fair. It styled itself as the Bridlington Eye after the much (~3x) bigger London Eye. Well we all know what happened in 2008 but that had little to do with the demise of the Brid Eye that was due to poor weather and lack of visitors. So down it came but not before someone stole the engine or so I'm told. All that is so much history because now the same people are putting up yet another Ferris wheel slightly larger than the first and it's hoped to be running by Easter. Unlike the first one this one will have open gondolas so I expect they are really, really hoping for warm weather; those North Sea breezes can be very unforgiving even in Summer.

Anyhow as the Bridlington Eye v1.0 was up and down and gone before I started this blog I never posted about it. So here's an ancient pic taken in 2007 when I was still a young man with no grey hairs and had money in the bank ...

Triple B

This fishy weathervane is on Bridlington's north pier. The triple B is not a credit rating from Standard & Poor, in fact no-one is quite sure what the three Bs stand for in Bridlington's coat of arms. The best I've seen is Bright & Breezy Bridlington. Anyone got any other suggestions?

Bridlington Harbour

 

Always a busy little place Bridlington; there are plans for a marina here but then there have been plans for many years and nothing has come of them. There's more about Bridlington here.

Anchorman

Meanwhile, back in Bridlington, a new sculpture depicting a ruddy-faced chap in period costume carrying a grapnel anchor has appeared atop the Bridlington Harbour Commissioners' offices. Reading about the plans for this I find it was intended to be situated in gardens across the road; a quote from a local councillor in 2013  "I think tourists will see it and probably stand next to it for a photograph", he goes on, "People will delight in having their picture taken and if they spread the word when they go home perhaps it will encourage people to come here." Hmmm, well such were the plans; now it's just stuck out of reach on a plain old brick hut serving little or no purpose. 

The culprit, sorry, sculptor of this is one Ronald Falck.

Surf's up

In 1890, so the story goes, two Hawaiian princes  and their English guardian went surfing in the east Yorkshire resort of Bridlington, in the cold North Sea. So starting a craze in this country for taking boards out to sea in order to be washed ashore ... hmmm. Anyhow the UK tourist people seem to think that folk would rather go to Bridlington than Bondi for their surf, they're nuts, of course!

Bridlington Visitor

Here's something a little different; a knot on Bridlington's north beach. There's some old tale about these birds being named after King Canute who, as you know, tried to stop the tide coming in and got his feet wet for his troubles or maybe he was named after the birds. I don't know, it doesn't matter all that much. These birds don't breed in this country but thousands fly in for the worms and such like on our shores every Winter.

Bridlington

Bridlington was pretty much the same as ever it is at the end of season, quiet, the odd tourist, a few seagulls waiting for scraps, the Yorkshire Belle moored up till next year and the fishing fleet tied up because the weather's been a bit iffy lately.

Lost at sea

The Flourish,  a  16-metre potter, was on its way back to Bridlington Harbour when it was in collision with the 88-metre vessel Nautica 28 miles off Flamborough Head. Three crew members including the skipper's son were rescued but the skipper John Collinson was never found. [Read more]

This is one of several memorial plaques on the south pier at Bridlington, reminders of the dangers of going to sea to earn a living.

Taphophile Tragics

Bridlington Bayle's back door

Being too lazy to step back a bit in order to get the whole gateway in view I thought I'd just take half a dozen pictures and stitch them together with the rather skewed result you see. The bayle, as I mentioned ages ago, is the former gatehouse to Bridlington Priory. This is the back door, as it were, and it should look a bit like this.

Dull Day in Bridlington

Anyone taking a seat overlooking Bridlington's harbour is going to be met by one of these guys. There are signs saying they can be agressive and they should not be fed but I've never had any trouble and they will sit patiently while you focus your camera on them.

It was a particularly dull and foggy day in Brid so I pointed my camera at the birds. The above is a Herring Gull probably in its second year judging by the speckled head which mature birds don't have. 

These are Lesser Blackbacked gulls on the beach.... 

These are two Turnstones having a wash.

This little starling sat about two feet away so I barely had time to focus.

Bridlington Priory

 

It's a fair bet that 99% of the thousands who flock to Bridlington for the seaside fun have no idea that just up the road from the beach and the bright lights sits this imposing mediaeval edifice. This 12th century priory pretty much owned most of East Yorkshire at one time.The Dissolution of the Monasteries was bad news with most of the buildings being demolished, some to build the harbour piers. You can read more here and there are more pictures here. I couldn't get inside to take pictures as there was a service going on.

Why are the towers different? Your guess is as good as mine.

Building Tomorrow's Bridlington

You might think that having suffered two years of orange barriers in Hull you would be safe to take a day out and not come across any of these damn things. But no, it seems Bridlington is being regenerated as well which seems to mean knocking down a street of Victorian houses and digging up Bridge Street above. Maybe they'll get some culture too, we've got lots to spare.

The South Beach, Bridlington

 Bridlington in late October can be a cold and miserable place but when the sun shines through the clouds like this ....

A Seaside Terrace

Hard now to imagine the thousands who came to Bridlington for their annual holiday but the evidence of their visitations lies in these typical seaside lodging houses and hotels. This one has six storeys and all were no doubt priced accordingly. I'll take a wild guess that it was built in 1878. In those days holidays were unpaid and in the north of England whole towns would take a week off at one time, the Wakes Week,  and all would descend by train on the seaside; there was nowhere else to go. Nowadays everyone goes off on their own little adventure to the Med or Bali or California or where ever a plane can fetch up and these old places have become rented apartments not necessarily to the highest calibre of clientèle. Some seaside towns, not Bridlington especially,  have attracted the unemployed, and possibly unemployable, the homeless, folks with mental health problems, former prisoners and so on. I say 'attracted' some might say these people have been deliberately dumped on these places, cheap and out of the way. Naturally this is  bringing attendant social, drug and criminal problems. So though the sky is still blue and sea and the sand are just the same we've come a long way from the days of the bucket and spade holiday makers with their kiss-me-quick hats and sticks of rock.

Bridlington Promenade

I've mentioned before how Bridlington has been improving itself with an upgrade of its seafront fittings. This is the new promenade running for about a mile or so to the south of the town. It is edged by continuous seating; imagine a mile long bench! The white building is the Spa, an art deco renovation costing millions.

A thingumabob

This whatchamacallit stands the end of Bridlington's north pier. It clearly serves some purpose but what that is or even what this gismo is called I have no idea. Maybe something to do with yacht racing, there's a Royal Yorkshire Yacht club in Bridlington which holds regattas off this coast and apparently they wave a lot of flags.

A couple of cobles

Cobles were the clinker built shallow draught workhorses of the North-east coast's fishing industry. The larger one to the rear is the Three Brothers, the last coble to be built in Bridlington (1912) which used to lie slowly rotting in the harbour (see below) until recent restoration and rebuilding means that it is fit for purpose once again. In front of that in the red, white and blue is the much newer Whitby built Gratitude. Both these boats are the pride of the Bridlington Sailing Coble Preservation Society and if you want to know more I'd recommend going to their site.

Prior to restoration the Three Brothers was painted white and never seemed to move from this spot. This photo taken in April 2010.

A tale of two towers

I'm keeping out of the city of culture for a few days; they have taken to dancing in an old graveyard while stuffing their faces all the name of culture and it's not a pretty sight. So I return to Bridlington Priory and its two odd towers. It's looks on the face of it like it's the real deal; an old Gothic building with a perpendicular tower. Well partly. The church as it stands is the vestige of Bridlington monastery which would have looked a bit like this in the early 16th century. As you all know if you were still awake in history classes the monasteries in England were dissolved by HenryVIII. Now the Prior of this place decided to take part in the Pilgrimage of Grace, a rising in Yorkshire against Henry VIII which did not end well. The monastery quickly lost all its valuables and gradually fell into disrepair until only the nave remained standing and that in no good condition.  The pictures below show it in 1786 and 1842. Note there are no towers by the front entrance. So enter our old friend and saviour of fallen churches Sir Gilbert Scott and his passion for the Gothic revival and up rises one perpendicular Gothic tower in the 1870's and one stump of a tower as a permanent reminder not to trust planners ...

The rear view, those buttresses are all Victorian.

I came across this helpful little site on my travels

Hull Train

Here's Bridlington Station in all its glory. It says platforms 5/6 for the Hull train but there are only three platforms. Nowadays the trains are just two carriage push-me-pull-you affairs and look quite small on the platform designed to take ten or more carriages.
I can't show you Bridlington Station without also showing the Buffet Bar, which regularly wins prizes for its floral displays. It's one of the last few remaining buffets which used to be on every station providing refreshments. It even has its own website.

 

This month's Theme day topic is  Public Transportation.

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Sea at Bridlington

The German Ocean gently laps on Bridlington's blue-flagged North Bay.
Today is the third anniversary of the great deluge that put parts of Hull under several feet of water. If the eco-doomsters are right then, in the future, Hull will be under the sea. So it's not all bad news then.