E very 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. The tram from Blackpool to Fleetwood is one of the most instructive journeys to be had on the English coast. The symbolism is huge, as you leave behind the neon, the rides, the three piers clutching at the sea and the tower and sail into an entirely different built environment – and a different idea.
The name of Fleetwood carries weight in these parts. It can be traced back to the 14th century, acquiring, through marriage, a connection to Swedish nobility in the 17th century. Local marriages linked the family to the Bolds, Aughtons and Heskeths.
If the names mean nothing to you, consider that one little chap was christened Bold Fleetwood Hesketh in 1762 – in Lancashire, that’s like being called Windsor Tudor Stuart-.