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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Lumley Road, Skegness, during the 20s. With only a few cars, it looks to be a far more sedate scene than today.

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.

Skegness District Council quickly put up a number of the factory-made “prefabs” at Roman Bank and Lyndhurst Avenue and then embarked on an estate of brick houses at Winthorpe, followed by more in the neighbourhood of St Clement’s Church. Bungalows and flats for the elderly were later added to the housing stock.

Many other buildings, on the foreshore and elsewhere, had to be refurbished after use by the armed forces but, after the lights came on again, in quite a short time it seemed, the resort was getting back to its pre-war stride.

In 1948, prime minster Clement Attlee came to Skegness to address the annual rally of the Lincolnshire agricultural workers, and, that same year, poster artist John Hassall, creator of the famous Jolly Fisherman, died in London at the age of 80.

By the end of the 1940s, the War Memorial Playing Fields on Wainfleet Road had been opened, a new Skegness Town Football Club and a Skegness Rugby Club had been formed and the Gibraltar Point Nature Reserve was well into the planning stage.

Seathorne Junior School opened in 1951 and in 1957 the Morris Secondary School was established to take the pressure off the overcrowded Lumley School. Both were replaced in 1986 by the Earl of Scarbrough High School.

Skegness Council began a big push to attract light industry to provide all-year employment and their first large size catch was Murphy Radio who took over the Winter Gardens on North Parade to make wireless sets in 1951.

Then Stiebels of Nottingham, nylon lace manufacturers, set up in premises at Seacroft and ten years later, when the council allocated land at Wainfleet Road as an industrial estate, both firms moved to new factory buildings there.

Rank Bush Murphy pulled out in 1975 with the loss of several hundred jobs, but others including Rose Bearings, on another site, have made good that loss.

In the early part of the last century, most of the public services for the Skegness area were administered from Spilsby and, even today, of Skegness people wish to be married in a register office, I believe they have to trot over to what was once known as the captial of “Spilsbyshire”.

But the biggest bone of contention in the early 1900s, when Skegness had become the larger town, was that the seat of justice was still centred at the majestic sessions House in Spilsby. Eventually, after continuous moaning, Skegness was allowed a summertime magistrates court, chiefly to deal with seasonal drunks and other petty lawbreakers, mostly from afar. The numerous locals who were pinched almost every week for riding their bicycles without lights likewise had to make the double 13 mile journey to pay their five shilling fines.

The Skegness courts were first held in makeshift quarters, usually the Council Chamber, the Primitive Methodist Church Parlour or the Parish Hall in Ida Road.

In 1929, a purpose-built courthouse was erected, next to the police station, at Roman Bank, on the corner of Ida Road.

It was a great day for the town to have its own courthouse and all the year-round sessions and was regarded as another little bit of power chipped away from Spilsby!

A new police headquarters was opened in Park Avenue in 1974, when the courtroom moved there and has since been extended.

Skegness had its own post office from the mid-19th century, in shop premises, first in High Street and then Lumley Road. The building on Roman Bank next to Berry Way, opened in 1929, a few months before the courthouse, and in both cases the building contractor was Pumphrey of Gainsborough.

The telephone exchange was originally on an upper floor of the post office, but in 1968 it moved to a new building on the other side of Berry Way. When the service went automatic in 1987 the exchange was centralised in Grantham and the local building has stood empty since then, apart from part occupation by the telephone engineers.

It was not all plan sailing in the decade after the war ended; indeed, the 1950s might be called the Fearful Fifties.

First, there was the Great East Coast Flood - almost 50 years ago, on January 31, 1953 - when most of Britain’s North Sea coastline was battered and invaded by the storm tide.

The Lincolnshire shore suffered as much as anywhere, particularly Mablethorpe and Sutton on Sea, where the evening tide swept along the main streets, sending surprised and fearful inhabitants seeking refuge in upstair rooms and even rooftops, resulting in many deaths and mass evacuation.

Skegness was fortunate, with its wide beach and parade wall staying the invading waves. Water covered the foreshore gardens and the Sun Castle and other seashore buildings were flooded, but no lives were lost. At Butlin’s Holiday Camp, one whole family of six perished.

Three years later, on January 8, 1956, a great blizzard hit the country and Skegness was cut off for several days, by road, rail and telephone communication, and without electricity. The weight of snow had brought down electricity cables and telephone wires and five foot snowdrifts blocked roads and railway.

The blocked railway of 1956 threatened to become a permanent situation in 1963 when Dr Beeching published his infamous roll of 2,363 railway stations marked for the axe.

Skegness was on the condemned list, but fierce and well organised opposition from the area brought a reprieve, although Firsby Junction and the northern line was lost, as well as the direct route to Lincoln through Kirkstead and the main Peterborough-Kings Cross line via Spalding.

Summer weekends in the 60s were ruffled by rowdyism and gang battles between Mods and Rockers, but it was a passing phase.

Better things were afoot for the decade, for Natureland opened in 1965, providing the town with an entirely new attraction of lasting interest. The main amusement park had changed hands two years earlier when Botton Bros took over from Butlins who had been running it for more than 30 years. The new owners rased it to the ground and constructed an entirely new fairground with new rides and stalls.

The present pier entrance was built in 1971, the third since to opened in 1881. But trouble came at the opposite end, on the night of January 11, 1978, when a northerly gale and a spring tide tore two large gaps in the structure, isolating the pierhead and its theatre and the two halfway shelters.

Too costly to repair, our once-proud pier, is now just a stump, although the owners have done their best with it with recent renovations.

In 1974, local government re-organisation saw Skegness Urban District Council replaced by the much larger East Lindsey District Council. The new district council’s work on the foreshore has been more in the way of renewal than innovation and the last new major attractions, I believe, were Panda’s Palace in 1986 and the indoor swimming pool in 1989.

The Tower Esplanade and North Bracing reconstruction gave a new polish to the main entrance to the seashore.

Lagoon Walk was really a replacement for an earlier failed pathway, but it is such an improvement it must be counted a new amenity, as well as a strong defence against the sea.

Prince Edward Walk too, is a really excellent addition to the now continuous marine walk along the seashore and the sea defence authority has really done us proud.

The future

As for the future, the wide expanse of sand known as “the lagoon”, remains the most visible area for new development and a scheme for a water sports lake has been mooted on at least one occasion. But capital cost and profitable operation are the deterrents, apart from the threat of sea encroachment.

It would be a real attraction for users and specators, with provision for all kinds of water sport and a hire shop for equipment for those who needed it.

Perhaps somewhere in that area space can be found for a dinghy pond to discourage their use on the open sea? That could save a life, and it would certainly save time spent by lifeboatmen, lifeguards and coastguards searching for drifting inflatables.

The latter years of the Millennium saw a transformation of the main shopping area. The Hildreds in 1986 provided the inspiration, followed by the reconstructed and pedestrianised High Street and more traffic changes in Lumley Road.

New supermarkets and multiples and the extension of the shop area to Richmond Drive, as well as the retail conglomerate on the Industrial Estate, have enlarged the Skegness facilities with wider choise, hopefully attracting custom from farther afield.

Car parking shortage appears to have been largely met, foreshore renovations are about complete, while new development is at present centred on Grand Parade.