Bringing you the news year after year
The Skegness Standard was first published on Wednesday, July 5, 1922, from a premises in Lumley Road.
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A brief history of tourism
The Skegness area has been occupied since Roman times.
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Find out about the Fisherman
The Jolly Fisherman, with his sou'wester, gum boots and broad smile, has become synonymous with Skegness.
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Paddle boats and a pier to be proud of
Skegness’ most famous feature is undoubtedly its pier, which is one of only 50 remaining in the UK.
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Billy Butlin - funfairs and fame
William Heygate Colbourne Butlin was born in Cape Town, South Africa on 29th September 1899 to William, the son of a clergyman, and Bertha, the daughter of a small town baker who had become a travelling showman.
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Carry on camping
Billy Butlin, a travelling fairground worker from Canada, set up his first holiday camp at Skegness in 1936 having identified a need for all-weather recreation for holiday-makers.
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80 years of Skegness yesterdays
After the foreshore became the property of Skegness Urban District Council in 1922, the local authority quickly went ahead with developing it.
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Flying bombs and wartime rations
By 1939 the nation seemed to have almost recovered from the Wall Street disaster of 10 years earlier, and then Hitler marched into Poland and Europe was aflame again.
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The ups and downs of life in a grand old English seaside town
As at the end of the Great War 1914-18, the aftermath of the Second World War found Britain with a huge housing shortage and local authorities’ first priority was solving that crisis.
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The 1978 storms brought the destruction of a Skegness landmark, as the pier was swept down.

Skegness’ most famous feature is undoubtedly its pier, which is one of only 50 remaining in the UK. First opened in 1881, the pier extended 1843 feet into the sea, making it the fourth longest in England. Having cost £22,000 – significantly more than the original £18,000 price tag – the pier was also said to be England’s finest.

Skegness Pier was originally conceived by the ninth Earl of Scarborough, who together with estate agent V Tippet was responsible for planning Skegness as a holiday resort. However, the actual design work was carried out by Stockton-on-Tees company Clark and Pickwell while Head, Wrightson and Co of Hull undertook the construction work.

The finished pier could be accessed on both sides via two ramps from the promenade, or directly by steps to the front. Whichever route you chose, you entered the pier through a dark pine entrance from where wooden decking stretched to the Pier Head. The entrance housed small kiosks which sold traditional seaside fare, and seating ran the entire length of the pier, with ornamental gas lamps and flagpoles at regular lengths.

Local joiner George Dunkley built the Saloon and refreshment rooms, which were originally located on the northern side of the Pier Head but later moved to the southern side to allow an extension to accommodate larger audiences.

While the Saloon was used for dancing, concerts and lectures, the domed upper deck above it provided magnificent views of the sea without exposure to the elements. Those who preferred not to pay the extra penny to climb the spiral staircase to the upper deck could enjoy the sea from shelters along the lower deck.

The pier's Saloon was renamed the Pavilion after the First World War. In 1948 it was completely reconstructed so that the entrances were transferred to the west side, with the dressing rooms to the north and south considerably extended. The stage was also extended and modernised with stage lighting and floodlights. Following further modernisation in the 1950s, the Pavilion was re-invented as Pier Theatre.

A year after Skegness Pier first opened, paddle steamers started running from the Pier Head on chartered trips into the Wash. They quickly became one of Skegness’ greatest visitor attractions and by 1882 a group of townsmen had formed the Skegness Steamboat Company.

For one shilling, passengers could take an hour-long trip along the coast. However, the more adventurous could, for 1 shilling and sixpence, take an overnight trip to the Lynn Well Lightship. The most popular trips were those across the Wash to Hunstanton Pier, from where visitors could visit the home of the Prince of Wales at Sandringham.

Although the railway brought most day trippers from the Midlands to the resort, many visitors chose to spend the day coming by steamer, and Captain J R Storr, manager of the Steamboat Company, chartered steamers from Grimsby, Wisbech, Boston and Kings Lynn. He also had landing stages built to the north and south sides of the pier Head, which became accessible three hours before and three hours after high water.

The paddle steamers made trips every day except on Sundays and in bad weather. However, towards the end of 1910 they had all but stopped running. The landing stage at the end of the pier had became unstable and engineers removed it to prevent damage to the pier itself. ‘Privateer’ was the last steamer to operate from the Skegness Pier. In her last season in 1911 she operated from the beach by embarking and disembarking her passengers using small boats.

Despite efforts in 1912 to have another landing stage built, steamers such as the May, Spindrift, Skegness Herald, Scarborough, Yorkshire Lass and Boston
never operated from Skegness again. The Pier Company was short of money, other attractions had grown up around the pier and become more popular, the Hunstanton trip had become unfeasibly long because sandbanks were forcing the steamers to take a detour, and the project was abandoned.

In 1978 Skegness Pier was severely damaged by storms and a chunk, including Pier Theatre, was washed away, leaving the pier head isolated and inaccessible. This end section was eventually demolished.