Not everyone appreciates Scarborough’s charm. Sometimes, it’s because they arrive after sitting in a traffic jam for hours. Or they crowd onto a beach like a refugee camp, where aid seems to have been distributed in the form of Kiss Me Quck Hats, before losing ten pounds trying to win a pile of two pence pieces teetering on a ledge in a slot machine. They’ve missed out on Scarborough’s special charm. So, to put the record straight here are ten of the top reasons why Scarborough is, in many ways, the ‘best’.
One: The First
Scarborough was the first seaside resort. Mineral springs were discovered in around 1626 but, unlike Bath, Buxton, Epsom and Harrogate, Scarborough was the first spa by the sea. The town became so fashionable that one summer in the late 18th century it was even said that there was no news in London, because everyone was in Scarborough. Once the railway was built the town kept on growing so that, when the Grand Hotel opened in 1867, it was the largest hotel in Europe.
Now the spa water dribbles unannounced from a rusty pipe near the south beach, and the glory of the spa rooms are hidden mysteriously under a car park. The only time Scarborough affects the news in London is when a hotel or group of bungalows slide into the sea in a symbol of national decline, but they can never take away the fact that Scarborough was the first.
Two: The Most
Scarborough has more cliff lifts than any other town in Britain - if not the world! It is funicular heaven, and if that isn’t enough, you can take a ride on the miniature railway, as local band Grandads Don’t Indicate said, ‘Scarborough’s Got a Miniature Railway (And It’s Chuffin’ Great)'.
Three: The Longest
After that, go to the proper station for a sit down on the longest railway platform seat in the world. It isn’t clear who has measured all the railway platform seats in the world, but it is a really really long seat, and until anyone comes up with a longer one, it’s the longest we’ve got.
Four: Skipping
Scarborough is a town that loves to skip. Every Shrove Tuesday, the schools close, the road along the foreshore shuts, ropes are stretched across the street, and everyone skips. It’s a unique Shrove Tuesday celebration that may have started when fishermen were preparing their fishing lines for spring. As a result Scarborough has more experienced skippers than any other town in Britain… if not the world.
Five: Ice Cream
In the 1970s Mayor of Scarborough, Peter Jaconelli, was the world record holder for eating oysters. Rather than celebrate that fact by eating oysters, do it by eating one of Jaconelli’s ice creams. Or even an Alonzi’s ice cream from Scarborough institution the Harbour Bar, a 1950's ice cream parlour that isn’t a retro-style throwback, it’s always been like that. Being realistic about the weather, ladies in bright yellow nylon overalls also serve creamy Horlicks and Hot Chocolate in thick glass beakers. The Harbour Bar is one of Time Out’s 1000 Things to Do in Britain.
Six: Literature
Surely one of the top 1000 Things to Do in Britain, after you’ve had an ice cream, of course, is to visit the Stephen Joseph Theatre in the Round, the theatre run by Alan Ayckbourn (the most successful living playwright in Britain). That literary heritage is boosted by the fact that Anne Bronte wrote Agnes Grey and the Tenant of Wildfell Hall in Scarborough and both feature the town. She visited Scarborough for her health, sadly, not totally successfully as she died young and her grave is in St Mary’s churchyard near the castle.
More recently local author G P Taylor has used the town as a setting for Shadowmancer and Maria Mundi, and the town features in cult rock 'n' roll novel, JookBoxFury.
Seven: Scarborough Rock
Perhaps Scarborough’s greatest poetry has been produced by it’s rock and pop musicians. Robert Palmer’s parents ran a guest house in the town and we can only assume that Addicted to Love was influenced by his experiences at the Boys’ High School. Even that is eclipsed by Scarborough’s leading power pop exponents, The Jags, who reached number 17 in the charts in 1979 with the classic (I Got Your Number, Written on the) Back of My Hand.
Some say that the Scarborough Spa Orchestra, Britain’s ‘longest surviving seaside orchestra’ (who knows what they’ve been through?), or the Spa Theatre Summer Spectacular - the longest running summer show in Britain - are more worthy representatives of Scarborough’s musical and artistic heritage, but they are ignoring the Penthouse. Almost anyone who was anyone, including The Sex Pistols twice, played the Penthouse, but unfortunately it didn’t survive as long as the Spa Orchestra.
Eight: Politics and Diplomacy
Anyone who visited Scarborough as a child will remember the Naval Warfare held in Peasholm Park every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon during the summer season. This display is still alive and well and offers a glimpse of pre-Playstation war re-enactment from a simpler time. However, Peasholm Park’s political importance isn’t only about educating children about the Battle of the River Plate. The lake in Peasholm Park covers the old Manor of Northstead which is used by MPs wanting to resign from parliament. A law of 1623 prevents MPs from resigning, so instead they get out by applying for a paid office of the Crown, and that’s what Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead is. As you paddle around the boating lake, avoiding the submarines and aircraft carriers, consider the Reverend Ian Paisley, Enoch Powell, Robert Kilroy-Silk, Peter Mandelson and, more recently, Boris Johnson calling you in when your time is up.
Nine: The Natural World
You may already have guessed that Scarborough is going to have, ‘one of the richest and most diverse tree populations of any English town’ (National Tree Register). Peasholm Glen has five Champion Trees, the largest or tallest examples of their kind in Britain. As if that isn’t enough, Scarborough is the home of British geology where William Smith and the Scarborough Philosophical Society opened the Rotunda Museum in 1829. The museum has been restored and reopened recently giving a fantastic introduction to the geology of the ‘dinosaur coast’. In addition to the fossils and dinosaur footprints from nearby beaches, there is an amazing display of the recently discovered 130 million year old Speeton Plesiosaur and the perfectly preserved skeleton and coffin of Bronze Age Gristhorpe Man.
The museum was relieved to have found another plesiosaur because they lost the first one they had in the 1830s. It was damaged when the Gristhorpe Man coffin was being manoeuvred into the museum, probably by some forerunners of the Chuckle Brothers helping out during a break from their summer show. Then it got lost.
Ten: The Birth of Flight
It goes without saying that the first manned flight took place near Scarborough. Fifty years before the Wright Brothers, George Cayley’s coachman flew in a glider at Brompton dale. The coachman went back to driving coaches, while Cayley became the founding father of flight.
That is ten of Scarborough’s best, because Scarborough isn’t like anywhere else. So, when you go, stop on the Esplanade, walk down the cliff paths, consider whether there is a view like it anywhere in the land, if not the world, and enjoy Scarborough’s quirky, end of the line charm.
|
