11 Nostalgic Seaside Cliches: Hunting Them in Bournemouth
Every English seaside town comes with a checklist of cliches – the pier, the deckchairs, the chips eaten in the wind. So I went to Bournemouth to hunt down eleven of them, with affection and a raised eyebrow.
If you have time for nothing else, watch the film first. Everything below is the context.
Where I went
Bournemouth sits on the south coast of England, in Dorset, with seven miles of sandy beach backed by cliffs and the pine-filled valleys called chines. This was a walk along the seafront and through the town, ticking off the seaside cliches as I went – the pier, the gardens, the amusements, and the rest. It is mostly flat along the promenade, with a few short climbs up the chines into town, and makes an easy half-day.
Why this place
The English seaside is its own genre, and Bournemouth has the full set. It grew up as a Victorian resort and never lost the trappings: the pier, the deckchairs, the beach huts, the gardens, the faintly faded grand hotels. The cliches are cliches precisely because they are true, and there is something I find genuinely fond about gathering them up. It is a way of looking at what the English seaside actually is, and why we keep going back to it despite the weather.
What you will see in the video
- Bournemouth Pier and the long sandy beach.
- The beach huts, deckchairs and the other classic seaside furniture.
- The Lower Gardens and the chines leading down to the sea.
- The town’s Victorian-resort character, hiding in plain sight.
- Eleven seaside cliches, hunted down one by one.
- [Patrick – confirm the eleven cliches and any specific spots featured.]
Practical notes
- Best time of year: late spring to early autumn – though the seaside is arguably better, and funnier, off-season.
- How long: a relaxed half-day along the front.
- Walkability: easy and flat on the promenade, with short climbs up the chines into town.
- Getting there: direct trains from London Waterloo, about two hours.
- What I wish I had known: [Patrick – the tip from the day.]
A little history
Bournemouth is a relatively young town – it barely existed before the early 1800s, then grew fast as the Victorian fashion for sea air and bathing took hold. The pines were planted deliberately, the chines were landscaped into gardens, and the pier and promenade followed. That makes it a near-perfect specimen of the planned English seaside resort, which is exactly why its cliches are so complete and so affectionately familiar.
Related walks
If you enjoyed this one, you might like these from elsewhere in Britain:
- Quayside to Seaside: Walking from North Shields to Whitley Bay — the coastal walk from the Fish Quay to Whitley Bay.
- My Personal Newcastle: Revisiting Places I’ll Never Forget — a slower walk through the city I keep coming back to.
- Walking Newcastle’s Iconic Bridges — every bridge over the Tyne in a single morning.
- I Followed a Song from Newcastle — letting a piece of music decide the route.
- I Filmed Two Separate Crimes in Newcastle — a short, surreal one from an ordinary day in the city.
- A Walk Through Time: Rediscovering the Wendover Canal — a quiet walk along a forgotten canal in the Chilterns.
Stay in touch
New walks land on the channel regularly — the easiest way to follow along is to subscribe on YouTube. The full set of written companions to every film lives in The Journal, and there’s a curated set of the longer pieces on the Featured Films page. If you’ve got an idea for somewhere I should walk next, send it through the Contact page — I read everything.
Patrick Ashton is a UK-based filmmaker walking the overlooked corners of Britain and Europe. More about Patrick →
