9. Southport, Merseyside
Visiting every pleasure pier in England and Wales was a fine way to see our coastal resorts, from the grottiest to the greatest. Southport had just the right combination of modern town bustle and buckets and spades to make it one of the best.
The huge beach is great for walks and wildlife, although walking to the sea itself might take a while. Even the second-longest pier in the UK doesn’t, for most of the time, reach the water: Southport has one of the biggest tidal ranges in the world, and the sea is often away in the distance. Even the locals get excited when there’s a high tide.
The pier itself is the hub of seaside activities, a fab retro arcade at the pier head, with love testers, penny falls and a terrifying automaton called Laugh with Jolly Jack. At the land end, there’s a great hall of mirrors, which doesn’t reflect badly on the town at all.