Lincolnshire Larks

Much as it did in both 2009 and 2014, the seaside resort of Skegness is beckoning to me with the prospect of making more priceless family holiday memories. The weather forecast looks very promising indeed so fingers crossed I'll be spending a few days enjoying the loveliness of Lincolnshire...

- Skegness Clock Tower -

Monday 6th May: we venture across to the East Coast on Bank Holiday Monday, enjoying a relatively trouble-free journey via the outskirts of Nottingham, Newark and Boston. Checking in at our caravan park around lunchtime, we're then free to reacquaint ourselves with Skegness itself from its 'Jolly Fisherman' mascot (inspired by the 'Skegness is so bracing' railway advert of 1908) to the Jubilee Clock Tower which forms a key focal point along Grand Parade. The town hasn't changed a great deal in the ten years since I was last here, and certainly seems very popular with young families making the most of the sunshine.

- The Red Lion -

Mingling among the Botton's Pleasure Beach crowds, we pause for a bargain ice cream (£2 with 99 flake) then wander over by the pier with its mixture of softplay, amusement arcades and bingo. Another busy Bank Holiday haunt is the Red Lion Wetherspoons on the corner of Lumley Road and Roman Bank, a building which dates from 1881. Many of the sunworshipper punters are sitting outside - some risking looking ever more like lobsters without sunscreen protection - so we stay indoors safely in the shade whilst partaking of Worthington's, wine or Hook Norton's Old Hooky. My liking for cask ale then has me seeking out one newer arrival in the form of the Crafty Little Ale House, a Lumley Avenue micropub which first opened last year. Magpie Best is a tasty 4.2% traditional bitter from a Nottingham-based brewery - nice!

- The Maud Foster Mill -

Tuesday 7th May: Skegness bearings re-established, it's time to concentrate on the wider delights of Lincolnshire. Boston is an hour's bus ride away (via Wainfleet and Old Leake on Stagecoach's Interconnect 57 route), and with single fares still capped at £2 per journey we really can't go wrong. There are several Brylaine vehicles on layover when we alight at the town's bus station before a Wetherspoon's breakfast fortifies me for the walking ahead. Top target is the Maud Foster Mill, seven storeys high and proudly stone-grinding flour since 1819 so it celebrated its 200th anniversary not too long ago. The windmill is situated on Willoughby Road beside the Maud Foster Drain and has five sails in full working order.

- York Street Football Ground -

Directly opposite the windmill - on the Horncastle Road side of the waterway - is a traditional pub called the Kings Arms. I developed a taste for Bateman's beers when visiting the brewery back in 2009 and this is one of their unspoiled tied houses so a swift pint of XB is necessary in unassuming surroundings. A nifty dose of sidestreet navigation then has me homing in on a sporting location which has sadly seen better days - Boston United's former footballing home at York Street. This has all the hallmarks of a classic old school ground with corrugated stands and proper floodlight stanchions - imagine watching a match here of a cold winter's evening. Boston relocated to a new edge-of-town stadium for the 2020/21 season, after which Railway Athletic played here but the site currently seems to be used as overspill fairground parking.

- A Sighting of The Stump -

Wherever you go in Boston, one presence above all others seems inescapable - the towering magnificence that is St Botolph's Church, affectionately known as The Stump. It dominates the horizon for miles around and is a truly awe-inspiring example of C15th century ecclesiastical architecture so it'll come as no surprise that I attempt several pictures of it from a range of differing angles. Nestled on Wormgate barely a stone's throw from the main church door is Goodbarn's Yard, a Good Beer Guide-listed establishment that seems to have attracted the pensioner pound with its lunchtime menu. Wafts of scampi therefore accompany my imbibing of a pint of Timothy Taylor's Landlord, pondering cobbled courtyards and life in general.

- Medium Haddock in Steel's Corner House -

Wednesday 8th May: the holiday has already supplied more than its fair share of highlights but a Wednesday visit to Cleethorpes might top the lot. We travel up the coast via Ingoldmells (a mass of holiday camps), Mablethorpe and Saltfleet to park up at Lakeside on the southern end of Kings Parade. The resultant seafront stroll is an expectant one because we know we're headed for Steel's Corner House, an absolute institution of a fish and chip restaurant which started trading in 1946. Mom and Dad have sampled their wares before so know about the treat which lies in store, namely a medium haddock platter for £13.45 complete with perfect chips, bread and butter, cups of tea and a generous dollop of tartare sauce. Fabric partitions screen off the tables and stained glass lampshades add a touch of elegance, I love it! 

- Cleethorpes Station Pub -

I didn't think Cleethorpes could get any better after Steel's but it certainly goes out on a limb to keep me transfixed. The town's railway station terminus offers not one but two excellent pub prospects - No 1 Pub (in the original main station building), and No 2 Refreshment Room as situated 'Under the Clock'. I can't do one without the other so I simply resign myself to a most contented hour of beer and railwayana heaven. Rudgate Ruby Mild and the sounds of Scott McKenzie are my reward in the Refreshment Rooms, whereas Horncastle's Dreadnought Porter is a steal at £2.50 a pint over in the 'Aleway' Station. I adore perusing the various fixtures and fittings, including the Watkin Room with full views over the adjacent platforms.

- The Signal Box Inn -

And if that isn't enough of a railway fix, there's just the tiny - but not insignificant - matter of the Signal Box Inn which proclaims itself to be (and I quote) "The smallest pub on the planet". I've simply got to check that out haven't I? Unlike its counterparts on the mainline station, this one is served by the Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway which runs miniature trains from Kingsway to Lakeside and back. For sheer novelty value this is a lot of fun and you certainly wouldn't be able to swing the proverbial cat inside the bar area; there are however plenty of benches and tables on hand as part of the wider Lakeside station site, and a quick half of Cask Tetley's is sufficient to say I've checked it out. 

- The Horncastle Canal -

Thursday 9th May: with the excellent weather set to stick around for a good while longer yet, I'm blessed with even more blue skies when catching the InterConnect 56 service inland to the quaint market town of Horncastle. This is a place with a fine reputation for antiques shops although I'm more interested in exploring a stretch of the Horncastle Canal, a non-navigable waterway which nowadays forms a wildlife haven and leisure walkway out towards Tattershall. Wildflowers and birdsong add to the idyllic sense of springtime as I take a moment in nature to recharge my batteries, then it's back past the swimming pool and bowling club into the town centre again so that I can pick out more landmarks to photograph.

- St Mary's Church -

Landmarks don't come much more charming than St Mary's Church which is thought to have had Roman and Saxon predecessors, although the current edifice is C13th with considerable elements of Victorian restoration. The War Memorial Hospital and the Court House also catch my photographic eye, not forgetting the general Market Place vista, and then I satisfy my urge for more Bateman's beer by calling into the Kings Head on Bull Ring. Even without the lure of a pint of XXXB, this one would have enticed me anyway simply on account of its magnificent thatched roof and overall cottagey pinkness. I would have liked to have paired it with Old Nick's Tavern (no, it isn't named after our Warwickshire correspondent) as the Horncastle Brewery's taphouse but it doesn't open until 6pm.

- Sir John Franklin -

Instead I hop back aboard the bus and check out the nearby settlement of Spilsby, a small town known for being the birthplace of the Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin (1786 - 1847). His rather fine statue watches on from one end of the Market Square, joined by Timeless Interiors and an old-fashioned petrol garage. A selection of coaching inns includes the White Hart, the George Hotel and the Nelson Butt although I give my custom to the Red Lion, tempted in by a back-to-basics Bateman's interior. A final evening in Skegness involves one last seafront stroll, then on Friday 10th May its an early beat-the-traffic dart to get us home to the West Midlands. Great weather, great memories, Lincolnshire you didn't let me down!