Another field report from the real South Riding: Kiplington/Withernsea

Hi!
On another visit down to my parents' (difficult circumstances – my Mum isn't well), Dad and I at least got a day out to the coast today, and the rain (mostly) held off. We went by bus to Withernsea (the main basis for Kiplington), then on to Hornsea. The Holderness landscape looked gorgeous: mostly flat countryside, interspersed with small towns and villages with pretty Gothic churches (the biggest and best being Hedon and Patrington).

Withernsea has been through some bad times but retains a lot of character: the loss of the railway to Beeching's cuts hit it hard. We saw, and photographed, the house on Waxholme Road where Winifred stayed and where she developed some of her ideas for SR. It's right on the outermost edge of the town. I rang the doorbell, but no-one was at home.

We then walked back into town to the Lighthouse, which is surrounded by houses as we saw in the 1974 serial (I recognised some of the streets). There is a local history museum, with a Kay Kendall gallery, in the Lighthouse, which Kay's sister bought and presented to the town after it closed as a working light in the '70s. I was thrilled to see a display of 1930-40s posters, photos, dancing shoes & c relating to Irene Lawson, who ran a children's dance class in Withernsea for many years. Her concerts, some of which Winifred saw, were the model for Madame Hubbard's shows: the wording on the posters is more or less identical to the example in the novel! There were some hilarious photos, including children dancing as the 'Dinky Dots' in 1933 and a 1934 Fancy Dress Ball. Sadly, the Floral Hall burnt down in 1948 or '49, so I couldn't see where the concerts took place, and where Joe met and, in his quiet way, fell for Sarah! There was also material on the development of Withernsea by the 19C entrepreneur Anthony Bannister (one of the inspirations for Snaith), who was responsible for bringing the railway to develop it from a tiny fishing village. The old hospital (originally built as a hotel) was demolished a few years ago: apparently, it did include a sanatorium wing for open-air TB treatment... Given how chilly the North Sea coast can be, that is alarming! I do wonder how poor dear Joe managed to get through the winters in his shed!

We subjected one of the men at the Lighthouse to our SR-enthusiasm (he'd not been impressed by the 2011 BBC version – over-compressed), and told him he needed to read the book and see the 1974 serialisation, because the Lighthouse and environs appear in the opening titles!

In Hornsea (which supplied some other aspects of Kiplington), when I popped into the Museum/Tourist info office for more leaflets & c, the elderly lady at the desk was reading the 1974 tie-in paperback edition of SR! We chatted briefly: she said she was re-reading it because she too had been underwhelmed by this year's BBC adaptation. She said she had been a teacher in Hull, and the girl who played the small Holly sibling (1974 version) who screamed when she found Robert's body had been one of her pupils!

So, all good fun, and the bus took us home from Hornsea past the entrance of Dowthorpe Hall, where Winifred's cousins still live and run a B&B and restaurant!