Britain's seaside resorts rejuvenated

Britain has had a centuries-long obsession with seaside towns, first sparked in the late 1700s when doctors began extolling the health-affirming virtues of seawater and ocean air.

The know-how, and wealth, of the Industrial Revolution led Victorians to embrace this innovation with gusto, resulting in more than 100 such resort towns dotting the coast by century's end.

"They were incredible feats of architecture and engineering - even to attempt one now would be an extraordinary thing," said Ms Alex Fisher, editor of Coast, a magazine that celebrates life around Britain's seafronts.

By the 20th century, they continued to thrive and most had become synonymous with a brassy, carefree affect: saucy postcards, kiss-me-quick hats and an occasional sunny day on a spit of sand.

The rise of cheap package holidays abroad starting in the 1970s slowly siphoned off their core market, though, leaving many foundering through the 1980s and 1990s.

But thanks to the British government's restrictive, pandemic-related travel policies, which all but forced Britons to embrace domestic vacations again, they have seen a revival this year, Ms Fisher noted.

And that might have a future: Flexible working, she said, will make it easier to attract residents, rather than visitors, to such locales in the long term.

The best way to understand these changes is to look at three very different seaside resorts around Britain.

One has weathered the downturns almost frozen in amber; another is regenerating at warp speed, thanks to a combination of convenience and cachet; and a third struggles, even as glimmers of hope appear.

Two years ago, when the British government examined England's poorest neighbourhoods, eight of the 10 most deprived areas in the country were part of Blackpool.

The resort city in Lancashire does not lack for visitors - 18 million people visited in 2019. Residents numbered just under 140,000 this year - but that influx of visitors has not translated into much regeneration.

Michael Trainor, a once-local artist who now lives in Scotland, explained that it is mostly thanks to a combination of location and size.

Sun can be elusive on the Irish Sea coast, even in summer, he noted. "It was the original Victorian chutzpah to put it on a chilly bit of north-west coastline. Mad from start to finish."

What is more, much of the housing here is nondescript and recently built.

The average price of a house in Britain to the year end in August was US$387,000 (S$523,000). Blackpool's average selling price in July this year was about US$170,000.

Trainor, 54, said Blackpool's attractions, including its landmark Eiffel Tower-inspired tower, were built as mass-market crowd-pleasers, mostly for the working classes of Manchester's factories.

Luring new creative talent is much harder as a result; the costs, and risks, are much higher.

Yet Trainor, who is the former head of LeftCoast, an arts organisation in the city, does not discount Blackpool's chances.

The city is getting some national attention: Britain's Arts Council named it an area of priority in September.

One of his most exciting projects is the Art B&B, a 19-room reimagining of a typical bed-and-breakfast, with each room uniquely conceived by an artist.

Art B&B's profits are earmarked for reinvestment in the local creative scene and he proudly noted that income from the hotel this summer exceeded all expectations.

"Blackpool has the same issues that all the UK seaside towns have," he said.

"But it's by far the most visited, and so becomes a concentrated version of everything that happens in them, good and bad."

It was a Victorian industrialist who put Frinton-on-Sea on the map: Sir Richard Powell Cooper created the town as it exists now in the 1890s, pumping his fortune into creating an exclusive enclave controlled by strict by-laws. There would be no pier, no ice cream stands - even the colour of beach huts would be regulated.

Today, Frinton-on-Sea is home to 5,000 people. One of them is Clive Brill, a 61-year-old actor and producer who now runs its seven-week summer theatre festival after first visiting as a performer. He said: "Frinton adjoins one of the best beaches in the UK - it's golden sand and has the most fantastic tides."

The town has bucked the downturn, thanks to a focus on upscale tourism from the outset. It resisted any effort to expand or attract a broader audience despite the economic potential. It also features impressive housing stock, including thoseby C.F.A. Voysey, the Arts and Crafts designer and architect.

Prices can be surprisingly reasonable for waterfront property: An eight-bedroom house, for instance, is for sale at about US$1.4 million.

Brill said the town relished its almost Big Brother-like approach, as well as its prim gentility.

Indeed, more than one-third of locals are of pensionable age. But recent additions to the town are a nod to the influx of younger people - take, for example, the tapas and wine bar, Different, whose name seems equal parts challenge and explanation.

Gizzi Erskine, 42, was amazed during her first visit to Margate eight years ago.

The cookery writer and television presenter, who grew up in London, visited after friends from the capital's artsy area began flocking there.

"Margate had a gritty glamour and the sunsets are unbelievable - I've seen colours in that sky that I've never seen anywhere else in the world. The light is something to behold," she said.

Recently, she became the latest D.F.L. - "Down from London", in Margate-speak - after opening a new restaurant, the Love Cafe, in an old diner.

Her business partners include Carl Barat, a member of the louche rock band the Libertines. He already co-owns a hotel, the Albion, in the town - where visiting musicians can stay while they record in the new studios that have also opened here.

It was hard to predict such a drastic upturn when Margate's Turner Contemporary gallery opened in April 2011. J.M.W. Turner had lived here as a child and painted the community regularly.

That same year, one in four shops in Margate closed, the worst rate anywhere in Britain. It was a stronghold for the United Kingdom Independence Party, the right-wing, anti-European Union party.

Yet the gallery served as a beacon to lure creative types to the town, expanding the population and perspective here.

The return of the acclaimed contemporary artist Tracey Emin, who grew up in Margate, was a boost too. Another D.F.L., she plans to turn her Margate home into a museum after her death.

The renaissance of this seaside resort is undoubtedly buttressed by its location - an hour and a half from London by high-speed train.

That Margate was one of the first seaside wellness resorts also played a role in the recent rebound.

The Royal Sea Bathing Hospital, the first of its kind in Britain, opened in 1791. Also, many of the adjoining homes are large Georgian townhouses that remain well-priced and well-built, but primed for renovation.

"People who couldn't afford to buy in London could buy here," Erskine said, sounding a note of discomfort that is familiar in any gentrified locale.

One recent report from the Property Market Index noted a surging premium for seafront homes, which could fetch around US$943,000 - likely a direct result of their desirability among the D.F.L.s.

"I do feel slightly concerned about the socio-economics of it, all the rich white people taking over."

NYTIMES