Alex Evans was amazed at what he found when he visited the seaside town with his family
Alex and his son gathering stones on Bridlington beach(Image: Alex Evans)
It has been named as the worst seaside town in Yorkshire. But Express reporter, Alex Evans, visited Bridlington on the East Yorkshire coast on a grey weekend in February and discovered the area had far more to offer than he had originally expected…
The little seaside town has for the second year in a row ranked bottom of Which?’s best seaside towns survey out of all the many Yorkshire coastal resorts in its study, clearly beaten by Filey, Scarborough and Whitby as well as Robin Hood’s Bay.
In fact, there weren’t that many English seaside towns rated lower than Bridlington, with the likes of Skegness, Blackpool, Weston-super-Mare and Nigel Farage’s Clacton some of the unlucky seasides faring worse in the rankings. Even Barry Island, home of Gavin & Stacey, is rated higher than Brid.
But I was shocked at what I found in Bridlington. We arrived and were met with the choice of ‘South Beach’ or ‘North Beach’, though sadly this is where parallels with Miami end. But, at least for a two-year-old to have a little day out, what we found was a perfectly serviceable strip of seaside with a handy town attached.
With a toddler in tow, gone are the days when we used to go to Florida and the Caribbean, at least for now. Instead we need to find something to fill every weekend, preferably quite easy and quite cheap, to keep the little man entertained. For this purpose, Bridlington is perfectly good – and even better than nearby Filey in North Yorkshire, which we also visited the next day for comparison.
Parking was easy and free. We parked on the seafront road with no parking restrictions and didn’t have to pay. The sand was perfect for sandcastles, the beach is wide, is easy to access and close to the seafront roads without having to hobble down hundreds of steps, and is long enough to be able to stay well away from the sea, even as the tide comes in. There are some rocks, pebbles and bricks mixed into the sand, but it wasn’t dirty and there was no litter.
What’s more, the facilities were free and plentiful. Free public loos are spaced every few hundred yards down the seafront, with more in town. If you’ve ever potty trained a toddler, you’ll know how much of a game changer this is.
The seafront shops also offered ‘baby cone’ whippy ice cream for £1.80. No £5.99 Flakes here.
The town centre is hardly Vegas, but it did have a little farmers’ market on Saturday morning, at which I picked up some local Yorkshire honey, some home-made marmalade and a few cheese truckles from independent traders for a few pounds each. And they even took card.
The biggest shock was Pier 6. This is a fish and chip restaurant (an essential of any seaside trip), which offered gluten-free fish and chips in a dedicated separate fryer. For me, as a Coeliac, this gave Bridlington the edge over many other seaside towns I’ve visited, like Barry and Filey, which had no gluten free chippies that I could find.
Otherwise the town centre had the usual array of charity shops, a CEX and some cheap outlets like Savers, but it was in walking distance of the beach (another plus for toddler days out) and had free toilets throughout as well.
Filey, by contrast, was a bit disappointing. Crossing the border into North Yorkshire the next day, we expected Yorkshire’s ‘posher’ county to be a step up. It wasn’t.
The tired seafront is much harder to access with a toddler, with only a ramp at one far end, and the beach was dirtier and rockier while the public loos all cost 40p to use, both on the beach and in the town. The ice cream tasted worse and there were fewer places to eat. On the whole, I was stunned to learn that Bridlington, not Filey, is my pick of cheap toddler beaches, despite what the seaside town tables say.
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