It seems that every time I visit Cleethorpes, I photograph Papa’s fish and chip restaurant. Or, rather, I photograph the pier. Papa’s just happens to be the current tenant. It’s a photogenic scene though, so I’m not surprised that it draws my lens.
I think this is the third time I’ve featured the pier and chippy on the blog (here and here, although it might be in some other posts too , just not where I’ve mentioned it by name).
These groynes are both at Cleethorpes, but the ones I remember most vividly are the ones at Mablethorpe, a little further down the coast (although those didn’t have marker posts as far as I remember).
On days at the beach they would provide lots of opportunities to play at receding, or low tide. Most of the groynes would trap pools of water beside them or around their ends, and these were often good places to catch small crabs (I never saw any more than a few inches across their shells). The water in these pools could sometimes be deceptively deep (maybe three or four feet sometimes) and it was quite easy for the waterlogged sand to collapse beneath your feet and lurch you into the depths. I have memories of my sister doing this when she was a toddler – suddenly flipping headfirst into the water fully dressed before she was swiftly grabbed and rescued by my mum.
The outflowing water provided a multitude of engineering projects for my young self, usually in the form of creating dams, or sometimes intricate and meandering canal systems to take the water to holes I’d dig in the sand. Sometimes I would float small pieces of driftwood, upturned shells, or lollipop sticks and watch them make their way out to sea (or, usually, to a place where the sand could no longer hold its structure and the waterway had collapsed).
Unlike Cleethorpes, the groynes at Mablethorpe are no longer present. Or if they are, then they are buried beneath the sand. Mablethorpe undertook a project of offshore dredging to place a thicker layer of sand on the beach. This has not only removed the groynes, but also made some of the sea defences less vertiginous than I remember them being when I was little.
Just behind the Cleethorpes sea defences, not far from the section of beach where the wooden post that featured in yesterday’s post stands, the railway line to Grimsby passes by. On the other side of the tracks stand streets of houses and, a little beyond, the stadium of Grimsby Town Football Club.
The railway line can be crossed by a pedestrian footbridge, as seen in the first photo of today’s blog post.
Climbing the steps to the top of the bridge presents a much better view of the football ground, with the terraces of houses in the foreground. The winter sunshine was playing ball too on this day, so the scene is lit with nice low light which casts great, contrasty shadows over the scene.
This wooden post protrudes from the sand at the northern end of Cleethorpes beach, just beyond a stone breakwater. The water comes right up to the sea defences at this part of the beach, as evidenced by the treacherously slippery concrete I had to navigate, but at low tide a large expanse of sand is exposed. I say ‘sand’, but because Cleethorpes sits at the mouth of the Humber estuary, it’s a brown, silty, almost muddy sand, quite different to the golden grains you normally imagine a beach to be made of.
Further south towards the other end of the resort, the sand becomes “beachier” (if that’s a word), with the high tide not reaching as far, and more conducive to typical seaside beach activities. However, this wooden post doesn’t stand on that part of the beach.
After spotting it from the shore, I decided to walk across the beach to take the picture you see here. This was mostly uneventful – the sand was wet, with waterlogged ripples present, and mostly firm underfoot. However, in a couple of places, it felt somewhat less secure and I felt my foot instantly sink a few inches when I placed it in certain spots. As I’d reached the post I took the picture, but I was regretting having done so. While there were no signs in evidence indicating quicksand, that didn’t mean that there might not be treacherous sections present and, even if I wouldn’t sink completely, the thought of getting stuck in a foot or so of cold muddy sand didn’t appeal, so I quickly (and carefully – following my footsteps) retreated to the safety of the more solid sand closer to the sea defences.
I’m not sure of the purpose of the wooden post – there are no signs affixed, and it doesn’t have the marker atop it in the same way that the posts at the end of wooden groynes do. Maybe it’s to warn idiot photographers away?
Back at the closing days of December, just before New Year, I decided to take a trip to the seaside. Cleethorpes is the resort that’s easiest to get to as it can mostly be reached by motorway, with the journey taking about eighty / ninety minutes or so.
Attractions at British seaside resorts are largely closed at this time of the year, as can be seen from the picture of the helter-skelter and big wheel (sans seats) that stand on the beach just past the pier. Largely closed doesn’t mean totally closed though, and there were still arcades and cafes open (I even had myself an ice-cream before I left for home!).
I managed to get good weather for most of the time I was there, the cloud cover only arriving (along with rain) as I was heading back to the car at the end of my visit, and I shot four rolls of film through the GW690. Most of them have turned out well and I’ll be publishing them over the coming week, although I did make a complete noob mistake of shooting a couple of frames with the lens cap on – a painful error when you only get eight shots per roll!
The Shambles is probably the most famous street in York. It’s buildings date in some cases back to the 14th century and it’s a big draw for tourists. There’s something undeniably attractive about it’s narrow, canyon-like passage, with an almost enclosed feeling due to the overhanging buildings.
The street gets its name from the fact that it used to be home to a significant number of butcher’s shops (“shambles” being an old name for such, apparently). I’m not sure that there are any butchers shops present any longer, but there is a shop that sells ghosts, and another full of Harry Potter paraphernalia.
This shot was taken quite early on a Sunday morning before the crowds of tourists began to fill it to capacity.
There are some more photos of The Shambles in this post I published back in 2017.
It feels a little odd to be posting Christmas photos when we’re fast approaching the end of January (already! How did that happen?!), but such is the delay with my working my way through my pictures. There might be a couple more to come yet too.
So far I’m keeping up with my plan to listen to unheard (by me) albums. My list of selections has swollen to a laughably unmanageable collection of over eight hundred titles meaning, if I stick to one per week, it’ll take me over fifteen years to get through them all (not accounting for me adding more!). We’ll see how it goes, eh? However I get on, I’ve started blogging my thoughts on each selection. Should you be interested, you can find those here on a new and imaginatively titled blog I started ;).
Steel City Snapper photography 