The first Butlins holiday resort was opened in Skegness in 1936. Partially due to this, the resort is one of the better known seaside resorts in the United Kingdom.
The name would appear to indicate that Skegness has its origin in the Danish period of settlement of England although there is no reference to a village named Skegness in the Domesday Book. Local historians say that the town took its name from Skeggi (meaning ‘bearded one’), one of the Vikings who established the original settlement to the east of the current town which was washed away by the sea in the early sixteenth century. However, it is much more likely to have derived from words which appear in modern Danish as skæg, beard and næs, nose or in geographical terms, headland. Lying within the historic county boundaries of Lincolnshire from a very early time, for governance, the parish of Skegness was in the Marsh division of the ancient Candleshoe Wapentake in the Parts of Lindsey. In August 1642, a consignment of arms and money, probably raised by Queen Henrietta Maria, in the Netherlands for the support of King Charles I’s campaign in the Civil War, was forced into Skegness by the ships of the Parliamentarian Earl of Warwick. Skegness was primarily a fishing village and small port until the arrival of the railway in 1875. In 1908, Great Northern Railways commissioned a poster to advertise excursions to the resort, the first being from King’s Cross, London on Good Friday 1908, leaving London at 11.30 am. The ‘Skegness is so Bracing’ poster featuring The Jolly Fisherman helped to put Skegness on the map and is now world famous. The poster, derived from an oil painting by John Hassall (illustrator), was purchased by the railway company for the 12 guineas. Paradoxically, Mr Hassall did not visit the resort until 1936. He is said to have died penniless.
The article goes on to explore encounters in Skegness, Great Yarmouth and of course Blackpool. For the full unabridged article, you'll need to grab yourself a copy of Haunted issue 3 while they're they're still available.
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