Bright and bracing
In the latest in our series on Yorkshire towns, Dave Lee takes a trip to
Bridlington. Main pictures by Jonathan Gawthorpe.
view of traditional industry right in the heart of the town.
We should know as much about the ancient history of Bridlington as we do any other town in the country but coastal erosion, an inconvenient feature along Yorkshire’s coastline, means that much evidence of ancient settlements is now located in the North Sea. What can be pieced together is that there were almost certainly Bronze
Age and Roman settlements. The best proof of the presence of the Romans is the Woldgate road, which runs for ten miles inland from the west of the town and lies on top of a roman road that can be traced all the way to York.
As well as providing evidence of ancient settlement, Woldgate also inspired the most popular exhibition in the 250-year history of London’s Royal Academy.
A Bigger Picture reaffirmed David Hockney as the pre-eminent artist of the age and the exhibit, which filled the main galleries of the Royal Academy in 2012, was predominantly based on images created by Hockney in Woldgate and his nearby studios. The Bradford-born artist visited Brid many times in his youth and began painting landscapes around East Yorkshire in the 90s, when staying at his mother’s house a few feet from the beach on the south side of the town. After her death, Hockney and his assistants moved into the house and the work he completed there peaked with the RA exhibition.
A Bigger Picture contained large-scale paintings as well as watercolours and video installations illustrating the subtle effect of changing seasons on the agricultural landscapes around Bridlington. Around 750,000 people visited the Royal Academy to see the exhibition which then toured the world, making images of Bridlington familiar to many people, and Hockney fans still arrive in the town each year to seek out the locations they recognise from gallery walls.
Tourism was given another unexpected boost in recent years after the Old Town was selected to represent Walmington-on-Sea in the star-studded 2016 film of Dad’s Army. Celebrated actors such as Sir Michael Gambon, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Sir Tom Courtenay also shot scenes at nearby Flamborough and Sewerby, but it is the Old Town that’s still festooned with vintage signage and props used to enhance the unspoilt atmosphere of the town.