Where Tourists Seldom Tread, Part 11: Five British Seaside Towns With Hidden Histories

Look carefully around less-loved, gently crumbling resorts such as Rhyl, Bognor and Skegness and they are still teeming with hidden pleasures
Where tourists seldom tread, parts 1-10

Every summer, Which? magazine publishes a list of resorts – 126 this year – ranked according to hotel quality and prices, food and drink, attractions, shopping, scenery. The top slots are inevitably occupied by smaller, smarter places visited by the better-off, probably before or after a trip to France or Crete. The bottom, though, is far more interesting. After all, what are we to make of places built for consumption if there’s nothing worth buying besides fish and chips? What about the timeless qualities of the shore – the horizon, the tides, the big skies? Is the point of the seaside its ahistorical oddness – or can history rescue resorts that seem stranded, sinking or sad?

The following were all ranked in the bottom 10, or excluded altogether.