What The Mice Saw From The Promenade…Part 4

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Whitby is a beautiful coastal village on Yorkshires East Coast filled with junk shops, gothic splendour and a trade in oddities. From the ruins of Whitby Abbey which inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula to cafes named after Lewis Carroll’s wonderland poem The Walrus & Carpenter to the waterfront bar named after Somerset Maugham’s Moon & Sixpence, Whitby has a decidedly literary & nostalgic feel. It hosts an annual Gothic weekend, boasts a boutique guesthouse with literary themed rooms and contains a plethora of vintage junk shops. This is the town responsible for us arriving in Yorkshire with one overnight bag and going back on a packed Edinburgh festival train with three. Here is my final photo diary, decidedly less pastel-y, of what the mice saw on their field-trip, starting with what we bought:

Vintage Finds from Whitby:

I adore Toy Soldiers, just enchanting, my first junk shop find 
in Whitby for £8.
.

Our Favourite Purchase - a device for measuring the speed of flight!
.

 
      Vintage Concertina Travel camera - bought for £12.
.
Magnificent Ship Lighter £6 to compliment the Sobranie Cocktail
 Cigarettes my father-in-law bought me on our trip.
.

Fantastic Packaging - Bolivar Cigars, I love this so much that upon 
my return home I hunted down an empty box on eBay £2.

The Sights of  Whitby – both picturesque & macabre:

Waterfront Houses
.
The dead sloping towards the sea.
.
.
Bram Stokers Muse - The Abbey - a brooding gothic paradise.
,

The Abbey Emerging from behind the graves at Whitby Church.
.

Port & Lighthouses.
.  Whitby looking out to sea.

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What The Mice Saw from The Promenade…Part 3

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In my penultimate instalment of seaside visits I give you Margate, a town which up until a few years ago may have been best summed up by the Morrissey lyric ‘The coastal town that they forgot to close down’. It has been in decline for decades, overlooked next to its experienced swisher sisters in Whitstable & Broadstairs, it has arcades, a dilapidated pleasure beach and not much else to recommend it to the passing train passenger. But with the opening of the Turner gallery in 2010 and a trickling influx of ex-Hackney-hipsters the town is beginning to show signs of a renaissance. There are shoots of gentrification in the form of retro tea rooms, boutiques and over-priced jumble sales. However there is still something very wistful and maudlin about Margate.

I went with my two bestest friends Kathryn & Lizzie, partly to see the Curiosity exhibition at the Turner gallery, and partly as a final hurrah before one of my dearests goes travelling, here’s my photo diary of a gloriously fun and incessantly rain soaked day:

Two solitary beach huts on the sea front.

Remnants of the Pleasure beach, set to return in 2015 complete with
 Ferris Wheel attraction!

Ice-Cream Cone Railing.

Lady of Mar - Shell lady looking out to sea.

Margate Dreamlands - closed down but recently awarded heritage status.

The Mad Hatters Tearoom - closed every day except Saturday!

Shaving Brush Badger taxidermy in one of Margate's new trendy
 junk shops Hunky Dory.

Post-halcyon W.Shaw.

Sea Mizzle.

One of my favourite curiosities at the traveling Hayward exhibition.

Optimistically placed deck chair in the drizzle.

The view from a dilapidated hotel.

Martgate's magnificent shell grotto bequeathed anonymously in 1835.

 Tudor House restoration challenge.

Catch of the day - river boat and pastel Georgian Houses.

Desolate coastline reminiscent of Dungeness.

Souvenirs of a day-trip.

Final mention to the work of artist Ann Carrington whose resplendently surreal work I came across when trying to find out the name of the shell lady looking out to see:

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What the Mice Saw from the Promenade…Part 2

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Field trip to Modernism by sea:

Bexhill is a lovely seaside town. It has all the usual Georgian & Victorian decay common to Sussex seaside towns complete with net-curtain-twitching-B&B’s, uniform beach huts and murky brown healing waters, but it also has something unexpected – Modernism. Bexhill is home to the De La Warr Pavilion which is the second ever modernist structure built in the UK. And just like famous childhood resident Eddie Izzard the pavilion is surprising, beautiful and unexpected, I give you my second photo diary of English Seaside towns:

       The shock of the new by sea - The De La Warr Pavilion.

Twenties cartoon icon Felix The cat fittingly in residence at the 
                   thirties De La Warr.
           Staircase inside The De La Warr.
                  Beach Huts on the seafront

                Fabulously designed promenade.
  Beach huts from behind, moody English weather system optional.
                Interior of The De La Warr

                      Staircase detail.
                  The back of the pavilion.
                           Seafront

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What The Mice Saw From The Promenade…Part 1

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There’s nothing I love more than visiting a new English seaside resort and we seem to have notched up quite a few this summer, sigh.  So in the first of a series of photo diaries I give you Scarborough on Yorkshire’s East Coast. It’s a fabulous town, full of beautiful Victorian architecture, both decaying splendor and starkly cared for beauty, there is an authentic British beach that feels like the shore that time forgot, all kiss me quick and bus mans holidays with a particular charm of its own. Unfortunately my phone ran out of battery on this part but here is what I did capture (excuse the slightly over zealous use of Instagram filters):

   The fully operational Bandstand attached to Scarborough Spa.

      Scarborough Spa, the first Seaside Spa town in the UK.

                      A local tailor's shop.

A Victorian mansion block with a distinct Fortnum & Mason sugar coated
                        Regency flavour.

  A solitary piece of Art Deco amongst the architectural chintz.

 Arabesque Pub (an homage to the Turkish blood in my husbands line).

Beautiful parade of four storey period houses that Dan's family are 
                   the lucky occupiers of.

 The Grand Hotel after its halcyon days have long since disappeared.

        Scarborough Spa from the walk down the Esplanade.

                           The Tram.

                   North Side Pleasure Beach.

                     Bandstand and deckchairs.

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Beside the Seaside…

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So, I have been in bed with flu the last few days, hooray, and just like the Robert Louis Stevenson children’s poem The Land of Counterpane I have been dreaming of the things I’d like to do when I’m well. One of which, given the  glorious weather, is to go to the seaside. Whitstable, Southwold, Saltdean, Broadstairs, Brighton, so many beautiful places close to the city.

I love everything about the British seaside from lighthouses to ice cream, collecting shells to building sand castles and of course watching the tide go out. Best of all I love Punch and Judy shows, actually I am crazy for them, I love all puppets and marionettes and may have even dragged a very despondent husband to the Punch & Judy Festival one year! I love this driftwood sculpture by Robert Race above. Robert Race is a sculptor who makes all of his pieces out of driftwood found on Chesil Beach, this Punch & Judy piece is just brilliant.

Sadly the seaside visit is all in my head but I have contented myself by looking at vintage seaside travel posters, most of which can be purchased here. They are a bit of a middle-class cliche, skirting slightly too near shabby-chic for my liking but I do admit we have the first two framed in our hallway. Here are my favourites:

  

   

     

Now the lurgy has almost left my system, I feel I have a date with the seaside beckoning me next weekend, day-tripper bucket and spade at the ready…

 

Quick edit: And one more in homage to the town Dan’s dad has just moved to:

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