The archaeology of the twentieth-century English seaside holiday experience: a phenomenological context.
Neil has written several papers on the seaside, often using Teignmouth as an example, which happens to be my neighbouring seaside town. This paper in particular focuses on the phenomenology of the seaside and in particular, pleasure and nostalgia.
Neil writes about the seaside and considers the seaside holiday in terms of its growth, transport and where to stay once one has arrived, but he also considers the division of the sea and the town in seaside resorts, and this often being the site of seaside shelters, became an interesting point to consider.
In some local resorts such as Dawlish and Westward Ho! the division between the town and sea is of ‘rough, natural dunescapes’ whereas in the early nineteenth century many resorts included a ‘formal promenade with flowerbeds and public toilets’. These promenades housed many of the ‘pleasure’ experiences Neil discusses. Whilst he covers the seaside experience as a whole, he does discuss the importance that the seaside shelters at Teignmouth have within the seaside experience. Shelters in Teignmouth have been preserved at intervals along the promenade, described as ‘open on four sides, each with a bench a separated by glass partitions, roofs are distinctively steeply pitched’. He highlights that many of these structures are poorly maintained and serve as gathering places for street drinkers, homeless or teenagers. (he references a theme developed further by the work of archaeologists Rachel Kiddey and John Schofield which I’ll need to look up).
What I found most interesting in his paper is the importance he places on the promenade as a landscape archaeology feature. The promenade provides a barrier between the land and the sea and forms a ‘natural gathering place’ and one for socialisation, contemplation and commemoration (demonstrated by the memorial benches). He describes the shear number of memorial benches in Teignmouth as emphasising the want to remember the ‘shared family experience of the seaside itself’ and seaside resort nostalgia. I’d so far considered the seaside shelter as an independent structure, considered only as part of a group when considering them as listed structures. What Neil has highlighted is that the shelters, alongside the flowerbeds, benches, kiosks and other ‘street furniture’ create part of the promenade experience, and therefore the seaside experience.
Comments