Return to Skipsea, Big Changes

The first time that I went there in 2019, I fell in love with Skipsea almost immediately.  I liked the caravan, I liked the holiday park, I liked the countryside and I liked the beach and the sea.  The exceptionally fine weather helped of course.

I returned again post covid in August 2021 and then again just nine months ago in July 2022.  As the time approached to book a cheap Spring deal again earlier this year (2023) nothing would have stopped me going there again.

 Let me explain about caravan holiday deals.

In the UK there is a very cheap and nasty daily newspaper (I use that description newspaper very loosely) called T’he Sun’ and several years ago they launched a voucher scheme that once collected allowed readers to book cheap caravan holidays in the UK. 

The Sun newspaper is a curious conundrum, it supports the right wing Tory government and its extreme political views which cares nothing for the middle and working class and the middle and working class read the Sun and vote Tory.  It is absolutely unbelievable.

I would never buy the Sun toilet tissue so I never got to benefit from the offer but a few years ago the voucher codes began to be published on-line so it was possible to get the offer without buying the rag.

So, I booked a caravan in my favourite resort of Skipsea for four nights for just £60, everything included.  An absolute bargain.

On arrival, too early to book in, we took a walk to the seafront and were in for a nasty shock.  Only nine months ago there were cliff top chalets which although being in danger of falling into the sea had a sort of seaside charm with friendly owners and there were steps down to the beach.  All had changed. 

A severe winter and a succession of storms had eroded the cliffs to danger levels, the local Council had negotiated a property exchange and compensation and  after the no doubt relieved owners had moved out the gypsies had moved in and now there were caravans, ponies, big dogs, piles of rubbish, bonfires and the acrid smell of burning tyres.  I felt immediately uneasy.

Where had they come from I wondered? Where had they come from I worried?

The village of Skipsea and the adjacent caravan site  Skipsea Sands sits precariously on Yorkshire’s East Riding coast which is said to be the fastest eroding coastline in Europe. Since the Doomsday Book was completed in 1086 twenty-six villages along this stretch of coast have been lost to the sea. Cutting new steps to the beach is an annual job.

The advance of the sea is relentless.  Every year along the Holderness coast nearly two metres of coastline is swept away, an estimated average of two million tonnes which is moved south on the tides towards the Humber estuary and builds new unwanted land there whilst it takes it away here where they would very much like to keep it.

Sea defences are just not financially viable (after all, it isn’t in the south of England), the area is officially designated as a zone of ‘no active intervention’ and it is inevitable that another twenty houses and a fish and chip shop will soon be lost to the waves.  The Local Council is like King Canute and cannot control the sea.

These are houses that were built as recently as 1985 and at that time had long gardens and a road running  along the front but that all seems rather foolish now. There were once houses on the other side of the road too but they had already gone which should perhaps have acted as a warning to the people who bought these properties as holiday homes.  An especially violent storm in the winter of 2008 took the road away and the waves have gnawed away at the soft clay cliffs every year since.

The gypsy community is clearly prepared to take the risk, if the houses and all their rubbish fall into the sea they don’t really care, they will just move on.  The Environment Agency should deal with it but I doubt the balls to do so.  Gypsies can be tough people to deal with.

This was all rather disappointing, they had even blocked off access to the very fine beach.  I try not to be judgemental but I don’t trust gypsies, I had several incidents with them in my working life, they live by a different set of social rules from normal folk.

Anyway, we weren’t going to let this setback spoil our holiday.  Tonight we were staying in a caravan just five hundred yards away so I took the precaution of putting my wallet and car keys under the mattress before I went to sleep that night.

Gypsies are not known for their hospitality…

A to Z of Cathedrals – Y is for Beverley Minster in Yorkshire

OK, not technically a Cathedral but still, in my opinion, grand enough to be included.

Minster is an honorific title given to particular churches in England most usually those that have been associated with monastic life sometime in the past.

Church hierarchy is a complicated matter because a Minster falls somewhere between Church and Cathedral but can confusingly stray either way.  Beverley Mister is a Church but thirty miles away York Minster is a Cathedral.  Beverley has a Bishop but he is based in York.  In London, Westminster is a Cathedral and an Abbey and a Minster and down the road there is a Roman Catholic Cathedral of the same name.

Read the full story Here…

This, by the way, is York Minster (Cathedral) obscured a bit behind the statue of Roman Emperor Constantine…

 

Skipsea in Yorkshire – Doors, Gates and Windows

 

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Yorkshire – Beverley, Two Churches and a Market

On the final morning at Skipsea Sands Holiday Park we woke to overcast skies and rain, it seemed that we had the best of the weather, this is the problem with an English Summer, it can be all over in just a week.  The golden corn field was now a dirty brown.  No breakfast on the balcony this morning so we packed our bags and left.

We arrived in Beverley in the late morning and by the time we had interpreted the complicated car park payment process at a pay and display machine the sky was blue, the sun was shining and a day that started needing a raincoat now only required shirt-sleeves.

The name of the town came into use sometime in the tenth century and I always find it interesting how far the name of an English town or city has travelled world-wide.  In the United States the U.S. Board on Geographic names have for some reason dropped the third ‘e’ but there is a Beverly in Chicago, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, South Dakota, Washington and West Virginia.  Beverly Hills in California is named after the English town so can indirectly be included in the list.

In Canada, as in USA the drop the third ‘e’ in Beverly, Toronto but in Australia they retain the correct spelling in Beverley, Adelaide and in a small town in Western Australia.

The place was busy and we followed a stream of pedestrians who seemed to know where they were going and arrived quite quickly at the Market Place.  Ordinarily I would not find this an especially thrilling experience, even now after nearly sixty years I can recall being dragged around Leicester Market by my mother on a weekly basis, but Beverley Market, I have to say, was quite wonderful, busy, vibrant and full of life and I was so overcome by the moment I was talked into a rash purchase of a rusty garden ornament for £25 – my entire pocket money for the week.

I knew it was going to take me a while to get over that moment of shopping weakness so I steered us all away from the market and towards the ‘Georgian Quarter’ which I hoped would give me the time that I needed to recover my composure.

The ‘Georgian Quarter’ is not a huge area, the main road ‘North Bar Within’ is barely two hundred yards long but it has been well preserved and is flanked with elegant town houses with handsome front doors with gleaming brass furniture.

It is rare that one small town boasts two wonderful historic churches, but that is the case for the East Yorkshire town of Beverley. The most famous of the two is without doubt the Minster, a wonderful monastic church but at the other end of town, just inside the last surviving five hundred year old town gate, stands the glorious medieval church of St Mary.

Sir Tatton Sykes, a prolific nineteenth century church restorer, once famously remarked that the west front of St Mary’s was ‘unequalled in England and almost without rival on the continent of Europe’. Now, Sir Tatton may be forgiven for seeing the church with the rose-tinted spectacles of a local enthusiast but the truth is that St Mary’s is a beautiful church, and must surely warrant inclusion in any list of the great parish churches of England.

We had come to see the Minster of course but finding ourselves outside the church it seemed rude not to pay a visit and we were soon very glad that we did.  It is an eye-catching structure from outside and the doorway is framed with stone carvings of gargoyles with wild, scary faces and bulging eyes but once past the ugly bug invitation committee we passed into an elaborate and sumptuous interior which is in contrast to the normal austerity of Anglican churches.

Inside the church is a treasure chest of stained glass windows, two magnificent ceiling paintings, one of the constellation of stars and another of Anglo-Saxon Kings of England and a trail of stone carvings that requires a printed map to try and find them all.  Most famous of all is perhaps the carving of the March Hare, a rabbit dressed as a Pilgrim and said to have inspired Lewis Carol’s Alice in Wonderland although I can find no real evidence to support that particular claim.

After lunch in smart little town centre café we made our way now along busy streets with buskers and street entertainers until we reached the Minster.  A magnificent Gothic structure which towers over the whole of the town.

Minster is an honorific title given to particular churches in England most usually those that have been associated with monastic life sometime in the past.  Church hierarchy is a complicated matter because a Minster falls between Church and Cathedral but can confusingly stray either way.  Beverley Mister is a Church but thirty miles away York Minster is a Cathedral.  Beverley has a Bishop but he is based in York.  In London, Westminster is a Cathedral and an Abbey and a Minster and down the road there is a Roman Catholic Cathedral of the same name.

It is an impressive building for sure and inside there are soaring columns, high vaulted windows, chapels and tombs but decoration is sparse and compared to St Mary’s Church it seemed strangely austere and functional.  We stayed for a while until we were spotted taking photographs without a permit (£3) from which we were excused when I pointed out that my granddaughter had spent an inflated £15 in the gift shop and then we left.

By now it was late afternoon so we returned to the market to collect our garden ornament purchases and then we left Beverley and made our way back to the Humber Bridge and back to Grimsby.  It had been an excellent few days in East Yorkshire.

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Thursday Doors – Beverley Minster in Yorkshire

It may not be the tallest or the widest or even the longest but in terms of floor space Beverley Minster is the biggest Parish Church in England.

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Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favourite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments’ on Norm’s site, anytime between Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American Eastern Time).