Royal Yorkshire Yacht Club
At that time the hotel was one of the largest Private Hotels in the town, a substantial Victorian building built in the late 1800s. Lawrence wrote that “Bridlington in winter is a silent place, where cats and landladies’ husbands walk gently down the middle of the streets. I prefer it to the bustle of summer”. Mr and Mrs Harold Blanchard were, at the time, the proprietors, and in the evening Mr Blanchard played the piano in the lounge, encouraging Lawrence to sit and listen or chat. He also spent some evenings at the cafe next to the RAF workshops, as well as at the cinema. He was apparently well looked after as he called Mrs Blanchard his Bridlington mother. A prolific letter writer, he typed his letters on a typewriter borrowed from Reg their son. Another interest he and Reg shared was motor cycles and his Brough Superior was kept in a garage behind the hotel. He tended to ride rather recklessly and on one occasion rode at 90 miles per hour along the Promenade. Lawrence was discharged from the RAF in February 1935, and the last photograph of him in the town is in the yard of the Britannia Hotel in Prince Street with his bicycle, which he rode back to his cottage Cloud’s Hill near Bovingdon, having sent his motor cycle on by train. This was only three months before being killed in a motor cycle accident near the cottage. The Ozone Hotel was renovated in the late 1930s in the style of a boat for the yacht club, who took over in 1938. A sundial was erected in memorial to him in South Cliff Gardens [5] just across the road.
Also in the gardens are the flagpoles erected in 2005 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. At the time they spelt out the message sent by Lord Nelson to the fleet before the battle “England expects that every man will do his duty”, but they are now different national flags. The fountain was erected for the Millennium in 2000.
On the corner of West Street is the old coastguard house, now a restaurant, but with the original gable wall displaying an anchor. Soon after the railway reached Bridlington a branch line was laid leading from the station to the quay along Railway Crescent, but this did not operate for very long and the street was renamed Windsor Crescent.
Walk to the harbour top and beneath your feet is the start of the Nautical Mile designed by Mel Gooding and opened in 1999. This runs along Princess Mary Promenade for one nautical mile which is 2000 yards, displaying different sayings along its length.
Turn right onto the harbour bridge which was constructed in 1969, but part of which was demolished in 1996 to make way for the dry dock and crane where boats can be serviced. Left you will see where the Gypsey Race runs beneath the buildings into the harbour at Clough Hole. [6] Clough is an old name for a ravine and there were lock gates here to assist the shipping sailing up the river. There were also several water mills along its length.
Go down the steps and across to the walkway leading to Spring Pump Slipway. A plaque records the discovery by Benjamin Milne in 1811 of a tidal spring which supplied water to the area.
Crane Wharf [8] was used as a fish market until 1915 when it became too small and larger ships began to use the South Pier, which was rebuilt between 1843 and 1848. Before 1890, when there were very few buildings except cottages, a road ran from the wharf to Prince Street. The Crane Wharf development of shops was given the Civic Society Award in 1986.
During alterations in 1986 traces of a lockup and mortuary were found on the site. These were in use until 1844 when a new police station was built in the Old Town.
The original North Pier was built in wood before 1793 and at very low tide it is possible to see stone from the Priory which was used at the seaward end in the rebuilding of the Pier between 1816 and 1843, and also its extension in 1866. In the 1700s and 1800s the piers would be crowded with people walking up and down whatever the weather.
Before 1850 most of the building was along the Promenade, then it started to fan out to include holiday accommodation. The architect Joseph Earnshaw came to live in Bridlington in 1869 to supervise much of the building work around the seafront and Quay. Victorian families with their household staff would come by rail to spend the summer by the sea in one of these houses.
Up the steps opposite the pier is Prince Street, which, together with King Street, was the only street leading to the quay in the 1700s. From the 1600s until 1890 a slipway ran adjacent to Prince Street from the George Hotel alongside the steps to enable goods to be taken to and from the ships in the harbour.
At the top of the steps were the Victoria Rooms, right, built in 1848 in red brick with a square tower, looking like a fortified house. The building, which was destroyed by fire in 1933, was used for meetings, concerts and lectures and from 1893 until 1932 was also used as the town hall.
Look above the shops and you will see the remains of the merchant’s houses which lined Prince Street and King Street in the 1600s and 1700s. John Bower built a mansion in Prince Street, left, which later became the Ship Inn where the first assembly rooms were situated, and then the Britannia Hotel in 1812, destroyed by a bomb in 1940. Gradually the houses were replaced by shops, inns and lodging houses for the visitors. The Rickaby mansion was on the right from the 1700s until 1860 when it became a shop and later Shaw’s Arcade.
Next to Spring Pump Slipway, left, Montagu Burton the tailor built a marble fronted shop in 1932 on the site of a petrol station, and this is now a restaurant. Marks and Spencer and Woolworths took over existing shops in the 1930s.
King Street also had several large houses with long gardens at the back. Halfway along, left, was the three storey, five bay house built for John Pitt in the late 1700s. This became a shop in 1870 and in 1906 the Royal Arcade was built in the centre. Note the date stone above. Hull Co-op took this over in 1938 and it is now Superdrug.