Hornsea – the Bahamas of England’s east coast.
Some folk say Hornsea can be gloomy, dank and bitterly cold. They’re fools.
Growing up as a child, I used to look out of my window and watch the sun come out in all its radiant rosy-fingered beauty.
What fascinated me was that it always came out at a great distance. Over Hornsea, the grey skies were permanently locked and bolted.
When I asked my parents what this was all about, they told me to be grateful we had enough coal to survive the winter. Happy memories.
Today, thanks to global warming, Hornsea is enjoying a kind of rennaissance, particularly with the establishment of a high-profile “boot-camp” for the British Antarctic Survey, and a residential building-boom resulting from the ground thawing enough to be diggable for the first time since the last Ice Age.
It’s a town that has everything. It’s true what they say: when you’ve been to Hornsea, you’ve visited the ends of the earth.
It gives me a warm glow to think of it.
That place scares me. It also scares me that there are enough people trapped there to form a traffic jam.
Don’t worry, it’s not a photo of cars desperately queuing along the road leading out of Hornsea, although I’m sure that’s perfectly photographable. In fact, they’re all parked.
Ever since the Hornsea Garage Act of 1866, in which garages were labeled a tool of Beelzebub (along with gas lamps, Londoners and running water), all motor vehicles have had to park on the road.
now you know that isn’t fair.
Hellsea is a lovely place (as long as you can leave!)
i think it is it’s dark misery that makes it great. Hornsea is so much better in the depths of winter. in summer it is just another, slightly grim, seaside town on the east coast. but in winter it can be a monster of a place. remember the storms when the waves came up over the Marine? fantastic!
tis a bit of a hell hole, but it will always be home.
That’s almost poetic, Darren.
There’s hope for you yet.
“A monster of a place” – yes. When it unfurls in all its terrible hellish glory, it’s memorable, the same way that a huge pile of burning tires makes more of an impact than a huge pile of tires. I am fond of it, but it’s a snide, mocking fondness most of the time. Probably not healthy, and definitely not objective. But hey.
And yes, when the Marine was getting battered by the North Sea, that was fun. If only east Yorkshire had proper hurricanes. That would improve Hornsea no end.
Hell hole is just one letter away from shell hole. On the plus side Hornsea has the sea. Yeovil just felt like a crap West Country seaside town but wasn’t anywhere near the sea. Count your blessings (or cursings)
Yeovil: another place I’ve heard bad things about that I *have* to explore properly, like Peterborough, Doncaster and Aberdeen.
Why crap?
I challenge you to vent your spleen, sir.
(Figuratively, of course).
We’ll go down to Somerset and ‘explore’ it sometime. It ought to be a nice market town but instead is a kind of post-war sprawl without any plan. The only place I’ve ever been where the ring road goes through the town and not around it. Worse they gave up building the ring road half way through. ONly in Yeovil could they close the railway station in the town and keep the two on the outskirts…
Deal.
I don’t mean “let’s to Deal instead” (the fort is nice, but otherwise, meh)- I mean “yes”.
Yeovil sounds like somewhere I can write about.