The Knowhere Guide

Best and Worst in Grimsby, Lincolnshire*

Grimsby, Lincolnshire Triumphs and Tragedies

Favourite Building

• my house!! yipeeeee its great if anyone wants to come its at quantok road you acnt miss it youll hear the music
• corpo bridge , it reminds me of when i was a kid fishing under it , ho the easy days.
• the courts & the offices still ok for sk8ing
• The building which housed the South Bank Jazz Club in the '60's. Council said it was unsafe - however I still beleive it's standing after 30 odd years !!!
• The bandstand in peoples park
• Victoria mills ... when i was 12 me and 5 mates broke in and scaled the green fire escape on the outside and went into the grain silo ... we nearly lost some close friends ... possibly the scariest thing i've ever done ... appart from drinking in the Nunny Tavern.
• The Dock Tower. The site of it from a huge distance reminds me I'm getting back home again.
• Victoria mills, trendy flats.

Demolish It Now Building

• the nunny estate its getting worse every year and the councill only seem to do anything about the nice areas
• bridge house job centre....nuff said.
• Definatly the BT building and all the buildings from Prostitute sorry riby square to ramsdens store
• The dole office, nowhere to park your car with no mot, and just up the road from the cop shop.convience or what!not!
• i would love to see havelock school get blown away !. every day when kids are walking home they always are swearing at one and other fighting and even smashing bus windows with stones. so if you do happen to be walking down carr lane at about 3.20 just run and hide !
• Freemo flats
• Fishers Frozen Foods - at least they had the good sense to make Terry 'Fred Elliot' Rudrum redundant!! Please let Bab's be next!
• Buckingham Palace ... it's not in Grimsby but it's full of sponging Krauts ... demolish it and lock the doors before hand in order that they can't escape ... failing that... demolish Wintringham school, they never liked me anyway.
• The auditorium..we don't need an aircraft hanger
• The Auditorium - what a waste of money.
• fisher frozen foods
• Nearly all of Grimsby - it was ruined in the 60s by the council
• everything along the Cleethorpe Road, between Riby Square and Ramsden's
• The superstore where the old Sea Cadet hut used to stand.
• BT Building near Ellis Way.
• If only to wind up the old biddies - the Dock Tower.
• The old Poll Tax building.
• The telephone exchange...what a bloody eyesore!
• the high rise apartments off of freman street

The Best Things

• PIRATE RADIO STATION CALLED RADIOACTIV ON 105.FM THEY PLAY ACE MUSIC AND U SHOULD CHECK EM OUT!
• lots of pubs, clubs - fun stuff 2 do
• In Waltham there is park and in the park are cool bmx mud ramps which are ace!
• GTFC
• the clubs and pubs and the beach its really good despite what they say!!
• DRUNKEN GIRLS WITH BIG BREASTS
• fish
• great night life at cleethorpes every body walks around freezing
• Easy shags and fat birds everywhere just mention you`re interested and you`re in
• Fish and Chips. I can slag off my home town til the cows come home BUT the fish and chips are the best without a shadow of a doubt.
• the Memory
• Shagging on the buses!
• Contrary to what some sad people think, Grimsby is neither boring nor a shit-hole. Yes it is a medium to large town with the usual run of things to do and see - but you make your own entertainment in this world and I and my friends never found that difficult in Grimsby. Everyone I have brought here has found it pleasant and friendly and as my home town it makes me proud to be a Grimberian.
• I have always been impressed by the 'Parks & Highways' department for maintaining the grass verges and public flowerbeds. Even when money was tight for local government this never appeared to suffer. Grimsby is very well off for public parks also maintained to a very high standard.
• Cheap rent, videos plentiful (see above), easy to get heroin if you're sad enough to want it (many locals are), surreal experience that is Gullivers nite scene, not far from Lincoln.
• Cox's Pea Bunker used to have THE BEST Fish'n'Chips in the known universe, but ANY Grimsby fish'n'chip shop is better than Harry ramsdens .... what the hell do Yorkies know about Fish?!?!?!?
• Dock tower, Fishing Heritage Centre, Freshney Place, the pubs.
• Not many people realise this; but the countryside around Grimsby is pretty good for getting BOMBED in...I mean the scenery's good too. The accents - I'd hate to sound like a cockney. I was born there.
• The Mariners (Wembley twice), Nunny slappers,peoples park on sunday afternoon.
• The pubs down Freeman Street, a night out like nowhere in the world! Grimsby Town Football Club.
• The people, the fish, and my husband.
• Nearby Cleethorpes.
• Grimsby Town Football Club.
• Fish and chips.

The Worst Things

• PIRATE STATION CALLED COOL FM THEY ARE RUBBISH BUT THEY THINK THEY ARE GOOD BUT IF YOU ARE INTO SHANIA TWAIN AND THE VENGABOYS U MAY LIKE IT BUT THEN AGAIN THE DJ'S ARE PANTS
• arriving and leaving - you miss it when it's gone and hate it whist you're there. But that's a typical hometown.
• In New Waltham theres note to do but the council promised us some ramps its been 2 years and still no sign!!!!!
• Nunny, Crap shops in the Town centre,
• Trouble making kids that the police won't do anything about. Open your eyes, parents - they're YOUR kids that you read about.
• the council people who are young are dying at ages 13+up the nunny fron drugs and nothing is being done about it. the shops in meggies well need i say more? no!! kids off the corners as is depressing having to walk past them on a night time when you are on your own.the lack of jobs. prositution but then again i would deprive anyone of having sex atleast they are doing it safely not like half of the teens in grimsby. down town the houses are cack!!and full of druggys much like the nunny!!
• scum bag drug dealers , praying on the kids !, and the parents who should`nt of had the kids.
• fish factorys
• The stupid aged COUNCILLORS (Overlords) that are sending Grimsby back into the Dark ages!!! Voting out a plan to build GTFC a new Stadia is a disgusting act of genicide for Grimsby and its hard working residents. We WANT this Stadium more than we want you cowardly ********!!!!
• It only smells when you get to a certain distance from the docks, this is literally right on top of it. The pizza factories do smell a little bit, but it is not that bad cos they have to control it seen as it is in a residential area anway. Did you know that Grimsby produces more frozen pizzas in one day than Italy produces pizzas in a year?? There University is crap too. Thats why I moved outa town. Oh yeah, avoid Cleethorpes in the summer months cos there are a load of townie twats there waiting to beat you up, in groups of four if they feel like it (Definition of a townie twat - Lime green/ted baker shirt. Tight as fuck trousers. shortish gelled hair. Total drop out. Usually works as a sparkey or builder. Will start a fight for the hell of it (sounds like a normal Grimsby lad though). Probably plays football, might even see himself as a good football player, and supports football like a religion.)
• Bugger all to do bar drink
• It's small, it's narrow-minded, it's depressing if you're not the same as everyone else. All teenagers wear the same clothes - those awful tracksuit bottoms with a whilte stripe down the side and a big jumper or shirt. Girls often wear wierd little neckerchief things not seen anywear else this side of Little House on the Prairie. I was born and bred there and can survive about a week before going mad and getting miserable. NOT a place to be g...a...y.
• the reality.
• Not shagging on the buses!
• People of Grimsby have not heared that life exists outside of the town
• proximity of hull and lincoln
• The smell from Pyewipe was always rather pungent on a warm day. Still, with the demise of the fishing industry I expect that the flavour of odour has altered.
• Young girls with babies pushing them around town with cigarettes hanging out their mouths looking gormless. Haven't they anything better to do except get preganant all the time!
• Why do people chuck crap and rubbish all over the place ? I know Grimsby is not alone in suffering - is this the new 'English disease' ?
• Violent, bigoted locals (stay away from the town centre at night if you're not white, a single woman or openly homosexual), easy to get heroin if you're sad enough to want it (many locals are), surreal experience that is Gullivers nite scene, not far from Lincoln.
• Housing estates and the unemployment and crime that (inevitably) come with them. Companies closing factories and buggering off elsewhere for a quick cash backhander - sorry, Development Fund Grant - leaving more unemployment. Council really need to resurface some roads rather than endlessly patching them.
• Boring part time football Ahem "supporters"
• Also Grimsby Town Football Club.
• leaving freinds and family behind!! poverty, too much drinking, abuse, lack of jobs, teen pregnancy, no encouragement to succeed leaving the cycle to repeat itself over.
• Grimsby is unique! Locals are born there, grow up there, get married or not there, spawn more brats there, get pissed there, fight there, grow older there and then want to die there. No jobs? - Never mind... Grimsby's brilliant! Glassed in a pub for looking at the clock on the wall? - Never mind... all in a Saturday night out on the piss! Passtime of local girls? - Getting pregnant! Shit weather? - That's Grimsby's speciality! Nice stereo in your car? - Not for long eh! Come on, wake up townies... there's a whole world out there! I escaped (but I still can't resist visiting when I'm back in the UK).
• It really is the best fish n chips in the world. A lot of Grimsby women seem to be impervious to cold. Even when there's a NE gale blowing off the North Sea in winter they still walk about in short sleeved tops and bare legs (purple and mottled). I never did this myself, so don't ask me why, but they do!
• Shopping has improved enormously over the last few years since Freshney Place was opened. But only one bookshop and that's a small one (unless you count WH Smith which I don't).
• Grimsby is not as bad as everyone would like you to think... I was born there, lived there for 18 years and, although I now live in Vienna, still go back regularly to visit my family.
• NE Lincs council sucks big time. Humbersidians Unite!! Humberside forever.
• I'm a black man born and brought up in Grimsby and I must say that I haven't had many fights. I am 6'2" but I don't think that has much to do with it 'cos Grimsby lads have this 'Jack Russel' like fearlessness of anything bigger than them.
  They're usually on drugs anyway. I was there this weekend and all of the kids look like zombies. Some 'spud for brains' decided to put a baseball bat through the windscreens of 12 cars including mine. I'm not bitter. He probably went to Havelock School and has no future at all.
  Still, I won't hear a bad thing said about my home town. That's my job...
  P.S. Park Lane (Cleethorpes) is the best place to find inebriated ladies...
• Well, I have grown up around Grimsby over my 22 years and it really is the most boring shit hole in the universe, and it's sad to say but I have done the Wheatsheaf hang out before heading off to Meggies.
• It must be alright because I used to live there. When I was a lad, Freshney Place (is that how it is spelt?) was just markets and shops on either side and a pub called the Friar Tuck which is not there any more and which apparently should never have been built in the first place. Also there used to be loads of punks sitting in the garden arrangements and the more respectable (ha !) citizens would tut tut under their breath as they scurried past. And when you opened the door to get into Marks and Spencers or British Home Stores a hundred other people would rush past you and try to get in before you did and you would end up feeling like the porter at Harrods. I don't know whether this cultural phenomena has been fully documented yet but what I want to know is does it still happen in Grimsby?
• Also Bernie Taupin wrote a song with Elton John called "Grimsby" and in the 1960s various bands with Mick Ronson would play in nearby Cleethorpes. Also David Bowie's publicist Anya Wilson is from Cleethorpes. She also worked for Paul McCartney.
• There is an excellent martial arts store on Clee Road near Park Street which has an excellent array of martial arts equipment.
• Grimsby is pretty good, but can get boring after a while. I believe this is mainly due to lack of decent surrounding towns/cities. The night-life is okay, but nothing special. Of course there are the MIGHTY MARINERS to go and see, brilliant fish & chips etc. But the town could do with a decent cinema. At least there's the Auditorium now. Although you don't get any decent bands there, as it's all-seater.
• I lived in Grimsby a few years ago and I have to say the following:
  • People are friendly towards foreigners
  • It is not the nicest town I've ever seen, but it's OK
  • Swigs is the best pub there
  • Freshney Place is boring
  • Best of Grimsby is Town, though tickets are too expensive and they sometimes beat up their Italians
  • Worst is that there are no clubs where they play good metal stuff and there is only one Andys records
• When the Town are losing - not very often - the opposition sing a variation on a well know ditty "You only sing when you're fishing"!
• Grimsby is the only place in Britain where the home team plays away - the football ground is in Cleethorpes! In the 70s there were fantastic concerts in the Winter Gardens at the beginning of punk - loads of greasy bikers waiting to beat up any of us who had short hair.
• The Town's ground is not in Grimsby. A trick question - "Which first division ground is not in the town it is named after?". Answer Grimsby Town. Blundell Park is in Cleethorpes.
• Being a Grimbarian, I was quite taken back by the cruel remarks that Grimsby smelt and was a dead end place. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't smell, we welcome visitors to our area and have a rich and diverse entertainment scene to rival any in the area. The problem lies with those who have never been to the town before and jump to the usual, incorrect assumptions. I say, visit Grimsby to sample the best fish and chips in the world and go to Blundell Park, to watch Grimsby Town F.C., the Mariners. Finally, it is definitely not "GRIM" in Grimsby!
• I lived in Grimsby a few years back and I found the inhabitants to be friendly with people born outside the area. I don't think the smell of the town was that bad, maybe I got used to the smell while working on the docks. The town to me has everything it needs to have, a few pubs and decent football club.
• Sarcastic bastard! I think you'll find that Grimsby/Cleethorpes have boosted DEMOCRACY as you'll find if you listen to Pete Tong "best nights out in Britain". And next time you eat a San Marco pizza remember who made it and they have read your review.
• Grimsby has one of the best museums in the UK. Dedicated to the fishing industry, Grimsby's National Fishing Heritage Centre has been voted one of the best educational tourist sites in the UK over the past few years with hundreds of thousands of visitors. Very odd isn't it for a town that size and locality? A great place to visit.
• Regarding the great smell debate - well, entirely whiff-free it is not, but I would venture to suggest that the smell of fresh peas during the pea season in June-July is the strongest you're likely to encounter.
  Unfortunately there's also lots of green slime around on the roads at that time of year as it drips off the pea lorries as they drive in to the factories. (I'm an expert on this - like many a Grimsby student I worked at Frigoscandia picking the dodgy bits out of peas for more summer vacations than I care to remember. Hairnets and white wellies, my God were we sexy babes!)
  Grimsby does NOT stink of fish though, unless you go and stand right next to the pontoon at the Fish Docks, and what else do you expect a Fish Docks to smell of?
• [And, again:]I am replying to the comments on the smell of fish. I have lived there for 23 years and have never noticed such stenches. Please correct your statement! Thank you! [I don't understand -- whoever made the original complaint seems to me to have been talking about smells of pizzas etc]
• It's actually not too bad a place; and it doesn't stink of fish. However, Pizza Hut don't deliver, so I'll never be able to go back.....
• Grimbarians aren't yet familiar with the concept of foreigners, and tend not to be too friendly t'ward them (I know, being half kraut ;-)
• THE SMELL!!!! Certainly in some parts of town there's a strong, ummm, food smell. The fishing port has almost died out, but there are lots of food processing plants (Ross, Birds Eye, etc) [creating the smell mentioned. He's not saying it smells of fish!]. On Thursdays Rosses make pizzas, and you can smell it for a couple of miles around, which hits a large portion of the town near the river... The A180, on it's way into Grimsby, drives straight through the heart of the industrial area... *pong* :-)
• Small cinema

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Last updated: 2008-05-15