Skegness to Chapel St Leonards

To the best of our knowledge, neither Richard nor I had been to this stretch of coast before today. The idea of heading to Skegness came from a conversation with Richard's 98-year-old mother yesterday in which she told us about her visit to the town with her father (whose dry-cleaning business had a branch here) during the Second World War, just before she started her radiography training. My mother, who was brought up partly in Nottingham, used to come on holiday here as a child and young woman, with her mother and brothers and her Aunty Kitty and cousin Joan. The photo shows Mum and Joan (plus dog) on Skegness Pier, which was rather longer then than when we visited today. 

After a wet winter, I was itching to get out walking, but most of the places on our "to walk" plans would either be flooded or very muddy.  We hoped that the coastal  path would be better, and it was. Skegness was rather nicer than we'd thought it would be, and we had a pleasant walk along approximately half of the currently open section of the England Coast Path in Lincolnshire, on what turned into a dry and sunny day. We weren't troubled by excessive litter as coastal walker Ruth Livingstone was when she walked this section in August 2021. 

The drive from home took something over an hour and a half; the route took us through Boston (past "Boston Stump" and the five-sailed Maud Foster windmill) and on across an extremely flat landscape. In Skegness, we parked at the North End car park, because the OS map shows toilets here. It only cost £2 to park for the day (good), but the toilet block was locked (not good). Therefore, before heading off to the north, we followed the promenade to the south to Skegness Pier, and an open toilet block (40p). While we were there we went onto the pier (free) and took photos of me looking as much like Mum and Aunty Joan as I could manage!  We also took photos of me and Skegness's clock tower, which also appears in the background of photos we have of family members.  This photo shows my Uncle Stanley with my mother, grandmother and Uncle Peter behind.

There was an impressively large expanse of sandy beach along the sea-front, and very few people about, while on the landward side of the prom there were the usual "attractions", mostly closed for the winter. The open section of England Coast Path starts at the pier, but we had walked along the front on our way to the pier, so we returned to the car park by way of the closest road to the coast. Thus it was that after walking 2.5 km we found ourselves heading back through the car park and down to North End beach to start our walk proper. We were mostly walking on a path alongside the sea wall at the back of the beach, with lovely views of the continuing expanse of beach to our right, with occasional dog walkers.  Beyond that was the extensive Lincs Wind Farm, and adjacent Lynn and Inner Dowsing wind farms; from where we were, we couldn't distinguish between the different wind farms but there were turbines out to sea in most directions (and there's nothing wrong with that!). There was nothing to disturb us to the left;  initially I think we were just passing behind private gardens. Our path got a little busier, to the extent that when a sign indicated that we either had to head inland and walk behind a golf course, or head out onto the beach, there were people in front who seemed to know the route across the sands, so we just followed them.

At the end of the golf course, most of the other walkers were staying on the beach, but some people coming towards us alerted us to the route back to the sea wall.  At Winthorpe we passed the huge former Derbyshire Miners Convalescent Home, which only closed in 2018, and a Coastwatch station. We'd expected to be walking past caravans for most of today's walk but until now we hadn't really noticed any; now there were pleasant-looking caravans to our left, with the ones on the front row having a lovely view of the coast. However, at the end of this row of caravans, things became rowdier for a while, with music blaring out from a group of cafes/pubs.  

We knew that we were approaching the Butlins resort, actually the first ever Butlins resort, but we didn't really know what to expect and, to be fair, by the time we passed the resort's beach entrance the noise had abated, though it was distinctly busy.  We'd noticed for some time that we were passing a large number of groups, virtually all made up entirely of women.  We began to suspect that they were hen parties, out from Butlins, and a couple of groups wearing appropriate-for-a-hen-weekend badges and sashes confirmed our suspicion - and from the Butlin's beach entrance there was a steady stream of groups of women heading across the beach to the sea. Research on our return home confirmed that this weekend was a "Big weekender" (adults only), advertised as a destination for hen parties.

From what we could see from outside the grounds, the accommodation at Butlins looked quite modern (or modernised), but we hadn't been prepared for the sheer size of the place, with row after row of accommodation blocks and entertainment and sports facilities behind. Later, we passed row after row of caravans (I dubbed it "caravan city") with the surreal structures of Fantasy Island beyond. We passed Ingoldmells Point, and beyond it suddenly got quieter. Richard spotted a wall which was a suitable place for us to stop for an early lunch, so we did.

As we continued past Vickers Point, there were still caravans to our left, but they were usually behind the sea wall and so out of sight.  To our right, the beach was very quiet, with the beginnings of a dune system forming in places. It was lovely, but sometimes the sand had found its way onto our path and for one stretch of about half a mile the sand on the path was deep, making progress difficult. We passed a boy out with his bike but having to push it through the sand and, when we were within sight of the end of the sandy stretch,  a couple asked how far it continued like this in the direction we'd come from. They explained that they sometimes cycle along here, but they now use electric bikes which are great when you can ride them but very heavy when you have to push them.

We left Ingoldmells behind us and approached Chapel St Leonards, now with some upmarket houses to our left. Our route got busier again but rather than the earlier groups of young women, our fellow walkers were now mostly families and older couples, like us! I'd decided that Chapel Point would be a good place to end our walk, and we could see the colourful beach huts and the modern building of the North Sea Observatory ahead of us for some time. I'd hoped for a cup of tea at the North Sea Observatory, but it was rather busy and we weren't sure whether we'd have to walk back to the centre of Chapel St Leonards in order to catch a bus, so we just walked around the outside of the Observatory, noticing the attractive expanse of beach to the north along which our onward leg will lie, and decreed this to be end of today's walk.