Grandad heads off to Cafeye
Faded Seaside Glamour: A Weekend in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk - 29th May 2022
As a sort-of birthday thing, Isobel sorts us out with a few days in Great Yarmouth at the Burlington Palm Court Hotel on North Drive, just a few minutes walk from the main drag along the sea front. Great Yarmouth is something of a paradox: said to be one of the last "un-gentrified" coastal towns, it's fairly rough-and-ready in places but also contains an impressive - if not unique - collection of early 20th century public buildings, including the Empire, Hippodrome, Royalty and Windmill Theatres, the Victorian Winter Gardens, Edwardian Venetian Waterways and even the odd public toilet, all from around 1900-1910. None of them have been tarted up though, and the brown of their darkened tiles looks at bit at odds with the neon lights that surround them. There are also a number of impressive houses around the town as well as up North Drive, in-between the gaudy amusement arcades and 1970s in-fill. The place also has more fish-and-chip cafés than seems strictly necessary, but we manage to find a nice restaurant at the Ocean Hotel. As well as the architectural appreciation, we also do the Pleasure Beach, which actually turns out to be quite good value given that we do the dodgems at least four times, and later in the evening there's a special bonus when we accidentally catch the Signal on Sea art installation. We didn't actually realise what it was at the time as we go for a quick walk on the beach in front of the hotel and discover a number of long-throw tannoy speakers set up around on the beach playing ethereal music. It's quite cool when we find certain spots where the sound seems to sync up nicely, like a surround-sound system, and there's one centre-spot where a beach flower seems to be enjoying things too. The next day, the dudes from the Netherlands are over to uninstall the speakers and the hundreds of metres of wiring that go with it.
next album: The Suffolk Show, Trinity Park, Ipswich - 1st June 2022
previous album: The Jubilee Torch Run, Brome and Oakley, Suffolk - 25th May 2022
Harry's had enough of birthday cakes already
Isobel's singing group has a practice
There's a plant sale on at Brome Village Hall
Harry holds up a raffle ticket
Isobel scopes out some plants
Harry makes a bid for freedom
More plant-sale action
We head into town for the first time
Fred lines up at crazy golf
The gang play another crazy golf hole
A late-Victorian toilet block
A horse and carriage trots around
Harry hurls himself off the wall
The derelict Winter Gardens
Another view of the Winter Gardens
The remains of an old pier
Looking back to the 'strip'
We do sandcastles on the beach
Harry gets buried in sand
Isobel checks her phone
A giant ice-cream cone gets hauled off
Under Wellington Pier
An optical illusion on a prison wall
There's a pile of discarded amusement rides
The gang peer through holes at a model village
Great Yarmouth: the sign tells it like it is
The Winter Gardens sign
The derelict Nelson Hotel
The boys are in the amusement arcade
Fred wins some more tickets
Outside the Silver Slipper
There's a Britannia above the street chaos
The grand Empire Theatre
Our bottle of wine in the Ocean Café
Outside Café Ocean
A derelict basement entrance
Fred gets a ball down as we play pool
The hotel's restaurant has a funky 1960s ceiling
The boys do breakfast
Isobel reads a book by the swimming pool
Fred and Harry in the hotel swimming pool
The Palm Court Hotel
Some impressive hotels on North Drive
Harry roams around in the Venetian Waterways
Red Hot Pokers in the Venetian Gardens
Isobel's on the phone
Former shop units
Regent Road is fairly busy
The Empire theater
A horse and cart
The 1908 Windmill Theater
A spinning ride at the Pleasure Beach
Isobel and Fred up in the air
Fred, Harry and Isobel on a Disk-o-coaster
Fred and Isobel
Harry queues up for donuts
Fred in a giant deck chair
Harry and Fred in Leo's
Fred's got a milkshake
Harry does hook-a-duck
In the hall of mirrors
Fred spins around in the dodgems
Harry and Fred finish their bumper-car ride
Roller Coaster: says it like it is
Fred, Harry and Isobel on the roller coaster
Zoltar speaks
Another horse and buggy does the rounds
The former Sailors' Home
Even the public bogs are impressive
Modern building next to the bowling greens
We walk past the Potters Rock Factory
Regent Road is heaving
A little bit of 1923 hidden away on Regent Road
The now-derelict Great Yarmouth Market
Great Yarmouth Market
The pretty Fishermen's Hospital, built in 1706
Anna Sewell's cottage, author of Black Beauty
Great Yarmouth Minster
The huge aisles of Yarmouth Minster
Isobel roams around
The impressive, but non-functional, organ
The 1876 William Hill organ
The Altar and nave of Yarmouth Minster
The RAF motto and crest in stained glass
Multiple reflections of the minster in a window
A herring gull with attitude perches on a gravestone
People stroll along the tree-lined avenue
A bold squirrel clings to a tree
Another impressive building, from 1901
The atheletics track just behind our hotel
Harry makes a sculpture out of coasters
Fred and Isobel play cards
Harry tries to explain Yu Gi Oh!
Fred's volcano does an eruption
One of the 'Signal on Sea' speakers
Isobel roams around the dunes
Yarmouth from the dunes
The flowers at the epicentre of Signal on Sea
Isobel on the promenade
The Signal dudes retrieve miles of cable
A boat sails past Scroby windfarm
Harry faces up to the sea
A bit of sea holly, with added snails
Another solitary yellow flower
Harry, Isobel and Fred in the dunes
A digger hauls away some speakers
Isobel on the little train
A view from the big ferris wheel
Looking up 'the strip' from the air
A view into an older Great Yarmouth
The Windmill Theatre
The Winter Gardens, and the Pleasure Beach
The Royal Hotel's crest
Harry's not too keen on being up high
The closed-down Showboat
The Barking Smack pub - an original name at least
Rogers Fish and Chips, and the Hippodrome
Isobel scopes out the Hippodrome box office
Yarmouth Hippodrome
The old St. John's church
An old Lacons pub sign
Harry in Subway
The Goldrush amusement arcade
The old Royalty Theatre
The awesomely derelict Iron Duke pub
The 1930s Iron Duke pub on Jellicoe Road
A cool old Gasometer down by the docks
A child's coat hangs disturbingly on railings
Gorleston beach
The wide beach is empty in places
The Pier Hotel, as featured in the film Yesterday
Fred and Isobel near the Pier Hotel
The very grand Gorleston Pavilion Theater
An prosaicly-named amusements arcade
The curious Gorleston lighthouse
Harry legs it along the promenade
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Grandad heads off to Cafeye
Grandad heads off to Cafeye
Harry's had enough of birthday cakes already
Isobel's singing group has a practice
There's a plant sale on at Brome Village Hall
Harry holds up a raffle ticket
Isobel scopes out some plants
Harry makes a bid for freedom
More plant-sale action
We head into town for the first time
Fred lines up at crazy golf
The gang play another crazy golf hole
A late-Victorian toilet block
A horse and carriage trots around
Harry hurls himself off the wall
The derelict Winter Gardens
Another view of the Winter Gardens
The remains of an old pier
Looking back to the 'strip'
We do sandcastles on the beach
Harry gets buried in sand
Isobel checks her phone
A giant ice-cream cone gets hauled off
Under Wellington Pier
An optical illusion on a prison wall
There's a pile of discarded amusement rides
The gang peer through holes at a model village
Great Yarmouth: the sign tells it like it is
The Winter Gardens sign
The derelict Nelson Hotel
The boys are in the amusement arcade
Fred wins some more tickets
Outside the Silver Slipper
There's a Britannia above the street chaos
The grand Empire Theatre
Our bottle of wine in the Ocean Café
Outside Café Ocean
A derelict basement entrance
Fred gets a ball down as we play pool
The hotel's restaurant has a funky 1960s ceiling
The boys do breakfast
Isobel reads a book by the swimming pool
Fred and Harry in the hotel swimming pool
The Palm Court Hotel
Some impressive hotels on North Drive
Harry roams around in the Venetian Waterways
Red Hot Pokers in the Venetian Gardens
Isobel's on the phone
Former shop units
Regent Road is fairly busy
The Empire theater
A horse and cart
The 1908 Windmill Theater
A spinning ride at the Pleasure Beach
Isobel and Fred up in the air
Fred, Harry and Isobel on a Disk-o-coaster
Fred and Isobel
Harry queues up for donuts
Fred in a giant deck chair
Harry and Fred in Leo's
Fred's got a milkshake
Harry does hook-a-duck
In the hall of mirrors
Fred spins around in the dodgems
Harry and Fred finish their bumper-car ride
Roller Coaster: says it like it is
Fred, Harry and Isobel on the roller coaster
Zoltar speaks
Another horse and buggy does the rounds
The former Sailors' Home
Even the public bogs are impressive
Modern building next to the bowling greens
We walk past the Potters Rock Factory
Regent Road is heaving
A little bit of 1923 hidden away on Regent Road
The now-derelict Great Yarmouth Market
Great Yarmouth Market
The pretty Fishermen's Hospital, built in 1706
Anna Sewell's cottage, author of Black Beauty
Great Yarmouth Minster
The huge aisles of Yarmouth Minster
Isobel roams around
The impressive, but non-functional, organ
The 1876 William Hill organ
The Altar and nave of Yarmouth Minster
The RAF motto and crest in stained glass
Multiple reflections of the minster in a window
A herring gull with attitude perches on a gravestone
People stroll along the tree-lined avenue
A bold squirrel clings to a tree
Another impressive building, from 1901
The atheletics track just behind our hotel
Harry makes a sculpture out of coasters
Fred and Isobel play cards
Harry tries to explain Yu Gi Oh!
Fred's volcano does an eruption
One of the 'Signal on Sea' speakers
Isobel roams around the dunes
Yarmouth from the dunes
The flowers at the epicentre of Signal on Sea
Isobel on the promenade
The Signal dudes retrieve miles of cable
A boat sails past Scroby windfarm
Harry faces up to the sea
A bit of sea holly, with added snails
Another solitary yellow flower
Harry, Isobel and Fred in the dunes
A digger hauls away some speakers
Isobel on the little train
A view from the big ferris wheel
Looking up 'the strip' from the air
A view into an older Great Yarmouth
The Windmill Theatre
The Winter Gardens, and the Pleasure Beach
The Royal Hotel's crest
Harry's not too keen on being up high
The closed-down Showboat
The Barking Smack pub - an original name at least
Rogers Fish and Chips, and the Hippodrome
Isobel scopes out the Hippodrome box office
Yarmouth Hippodrome
The old St. John's church
An old Lacons pub sign
Harry in Subway
The Goldrush amusement arcade
The old Royalty Theatre
The awesomely derelict Iron Duke pub
The 1930s Iron Duke pub on Jellicoe Road
A cool old Gasometer down by the docks
A child's coat hangs disturbingly on railings
Gorleston beach
The wide beach is empty in places
The Pier Hotel, as featured in the film Yesterday
Fred and Isobel near the Pier Hotel
The very grand Gorleston Pavilion Theater
An prosaicly-named amusements arcade
The curious Gorleston lighthouse
Harry legs it along the promenade