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- New Living Traditions -

GRIMSBY

This guide is about Grimsby Town Football Club, but they have always played in Cleethorpes! What on earth possessed them to call themselves Grimsby Town? Did they think it sounded better to call themselves after the town next door? It would be like a Bradford club calling itself West L**ds!

NATIONAL FISHING HERITAGE CENTRE
Heritage Square, Alexandra Dock.
We wonder what Edward VII’s wife thought about having a fish dock and a football club in Crewe named after her.
This museum uses a lot a technology, but uses to create a strong, well thought out story. It is highly recommended. As is a look around the docks that made the town. The large fancy Grimsby Dock Tower was built to hold water high enough to provide hydraulic power to work the dock gates. It was modelled on the Palazzo Vecchio in Florece, as was the Bradford Town Hall Clock Tower

GREENWICH MERIDIAN
Passes through Cleethorpes, and is marked with a steel strip on the green bit between the beach and buildings. It was shabby and very hard to find, but was tarted up to mark the Millennium. If you are lucky with weather and tides you will also be able to stand on the prom and see a dozen or more ship heading for the Humber.

CLEETHORPES HUMBER ESTUARY DISCOVERY CENTRE
Boating Lake Kings Road. Claims to let you learn about one of Europe’s top ten estuaries, although it does not say what position in the charts it is. Who decides, and what does an estuary have to do to get to number 1? Do a video or appear on a tacky prime time tv show? It is hard to tell from the web site if this place is going to be really good, or as much fun as long dead fish. It is less than two pounds to get in though, so it is probably worth a try.

HUMBER BRIDGE
Walking across this is one of the best short walks in the country, even if you don’t flick small coins into the river from the middle. There is a car park and visitors centre on the north side, which is close to Hessle railway station, on the Hull line. If you are on foot you can get a bus to Grimsby from Barton upon-Humber on the other side, or travel on a bizarre, dead end branch line that is served by a one carriage train. Barton has a church with a Saxon tower, which is never open, and an independent supermarket with a very good cafe. The train to Grimsby passes the remote Thornton Abbey, which has a station. The fine gatehouse is one of the earliest brick buildings in Britain.

WILLY’S PUB AND BREWERY
17 High Cliff Road, facing the sea.
Apparently an ever present in the Good Beer Guide since it opened, which is remarkable for a brew pub because of the host of difficulties in brewing consistently good beer. The Sair Inn, Linthwaite, near Huddersfield is another one that does.
Huddersfield is a small town near Bradford.