Source: Skegness Herald 1st December 1882
That there is a bright future in store for Skegness there can be no doubt.
It has risen into prominence, with wonderful rapidity, and in a very brief period it has increased in population from two hundred to two thousand, and this ratio of increase is likely to continue for some years to come.
A fine field is open here to speculating builders, and land can be obtained from the Right Honourable Earl of Scarbrough, and different land societies, on easy terms.
Roads and streets have been laid out by Mr H V Tippett, agent to the noble Earl, who has just come to reside here for the purpose of carrying out the plans he devised some three or four years since and developing the place.
To tradesmen and all the residents here the past season has been on of unexampled prosperity.
The number of visitors and excursionists during the last summer exceeded the number of the previous year by something like twenty thousand.
On several occasions the visitors could not be accommodated with apartments or lodgings and had to seek them in neighbouring towns and villages.
Direct communication has just been opened up with Leicester and other midland towns from whence we may expect a very large increase in visitors in future years.
To provide for the requirements of these will tax the lodging-house keepers and tradesmen to the utmost.
Increased accommodation will be required, and this is being provided as fast as our local builders can do so, but enterprising as they are it is a question whether they will be able to proceed with the erection of buildings sufficiently rapid to supply the demand.
If Nature has not endowed Skegness with magnificent scenery we possess that which will more than counter-balance it.
We are admirably situated as a watering-place and it is the nearest seaside resort for several of the largest centres of population in the midlands, with whom we have direct railway communication.
In addition to this a spirit of enterprise pervaded the whole of the residents of our town, which is not to be found in those older watering-places whose inhabitants are content to “rest on their oars” and boast of a magnificent bay and other advantages Nature has given them, and do not make any effort to provide placed of entertainment or other attractions necessary for seaside resorts of the present day.
A melancholy picture was drawn of a watering-place on the south coast not long since by one of its leading inhabitants, who said that although new summer resorts were springing up they could not boast of unrivaled sands, a magnificent bay, and esplanade such as his own town possesses, yet also he said “If we wish to hold our own as a watering-place and not retrograde to what we were some thirty or forty tears since, we must put our ’shoulder to the wheel’ and cater for public patronage in a liberal way; we must hold out every inducement in our power to entice visitors to our town, and when here, we must endeavour to keep them as long as possible amongst us. To do this, we must take advantage,not only of all the appliances Nature has placed at our disposal, but we must look around for other elements of success, and, when found, we must cultivate them with earnestness of purpose, remembering that we are fighting for our patrimony and birthright, and that it is a battle - involving life and death of our prestige as a watering-place - in which we are all individually and collectively interested, and in which we must all take our part”.
In our new and rapidly-rising watering-place we have unrivaled sands, and if not a magnificent bay we have a splendid esplanade a mile in length, and which will shortly be considerably lengthened.
We have also got what the place above alluded to does not possess, and that is a splendid pier with pavillion, and public gardens also with pavillion, and in both these places there is an excellent band during the season where visitors can enjoy a concert or indulge in a dance.
We also possess on of the finest cricket grounds in England; a splendid library and reading rooms, besides excellent hotel accommodation.
Turkish baths are being erected, and a concert and tea-rooms will shortly be built near the entrance to the public gardens on Grand Parade.
Other improvements are being made and attractions provided, among them being that of steam boats for making pleasure trips during the season.
The Turkish baths are being rapidly pushed forward by Mr G Dunkley, the contractor, and in the course of a few months the remaining opening in the Lumley Road will be filled with buildings erected by Mr W Hall and others.
Excellent houses are being erected in Rutland Road by Mr S Clarke and Mr Kassall.
Mr T Pycock is erecting villa residences in Algitha Road, and in the Grand Parade some commodious houses are about to be erected by a Nottingham gentleman.
Villa residences are being built on the Wainfleet Road near the railway station, by Mr Hull, who is also about to commence other near thereto.
Mr Spikins is also building a dwelling-house and refreshment rooms on the vacant spot near the Whale Museum on High Street.
The erection of a large number of houses is contemplated, and a large scheme is about to be carried out by the Grosvenor Road Freehold Land Society, which has an estate here of about twenty-four acres, and which is intended to divide into allotments.
The new road, which is to be called Grosvenor Road, has been laid out and the necessary drainage pipes laid under the same. It extends from the Roman Bank nearly down to the old church.
It is almost in a direct line with the road opposite the entrance to the pier.
The plots will soon be laid out, and no doubt rapidly taken up and built upon.
On this society’s land will probably be erected a class of houses so much needed in Skegness - houses suitable for mechanics and others of the working-classes.
This would enable a great number of the working-classes who now come here from Wainfleet, and return in the evening, to reside and spend their money in the place where they earn it.
