The Knowhere Guide

Best and Worst in Scarborough, North Yorkshire*

Scarborough, North Yorkshire Triumphs and Tragedies

Favourite Building

• abbey national building it has a allyway down the side of it due to the lack of toilets in scarborough it brings me great relief alot
• the market vaults there are many cool shops in there especially the one called Daxs
• THE CASTLE
• The train station. The line ends here in the seaside town that they forgot to close down.
• Brunswick The White Horse
• The Castle...
• The Spa, especially the sun court. The Castle (what's left of it!)
• ollies mount
• Tesco. Our old house on Princess Street which was falling to bits and the rent was unbelievably cheap - in the cellar were photos of the landlords wife in various states of undress.
• my house
• Ones with drinks licences.
• victoria wine on aberdeen walk,followed by costcutters on north marine road
• The McCain Stadium
• Futurist Roof - great for chilling - spitting on people passing by on open top buses
• Odeon.
• Those Esplanade hotels/flats,[ones without the concrete balconies-!] And the windmill
• the beach
• police station.. oh taht brutalism and the brutes in the bar on top a drinking the night away.. Lights winking and shadowa moving telling us of a better world..........
• The cricket ground on Northe Marine Road. The largest non test ground in England.
• ahhh....the section that matters!! THE OLD VICTORIAN POOOOOOOLLLL!!!!!!!!!!
• Kebab house opposite the Sun (but only at 2 in the morning)
• The Grand Hotel, a fucking GIGANTIC Victorian place, unmissable from the coast is well cool. (now owned by Butlins.) And the modernist, art-deco Stephen Joseph theatre opposite the station is also good.
• The Brunswik center
• Odeon Building
• Stephen Joseph theatre formerly the Odeon cinema

Demolish It Now Building

• the opera house on st thomas st needs flatting as dose the futurist
• jimmy savilles flat.
• Sixth Form
• WOOLWORTHS
• Those horrible ugly office like buildings. All visitors who come of the train see this gross building where the tourist office is. Its a 60's eyesore. Demolish it
• The old outdoor pool
• The Sixth Form College (or the Girls' High School as it used to be known) Scene of too many years of academic misery!
• The Castle, come off it its been lying half beat since the War and should be replaced with the Zebnith project which threatens to put a roof on the entire town. Any house which former residents of Edghill have been relocated to.
• all the DSS hostels.
• The opera house really ought to be knocked down before it falls on somebody.
• Edgehill, Barrowcliffe & Eastfield council housing estates
• Tesco. The Conservative Club. Most of Scarborough train station is useless nowadays - the platform stretches halfway to Seamer from the days when loads of people used to arrive on trains.
• old debenhams with the big sweeping staircase down to the sports department...you could roll down it....when you were a kid of course
• Club XS, Boleyns, Quids Inn.
• olympia leisure on the south bay and all the dumps at the back of edgehill
• All the ugly box-i modern ones! And definately that hideous Brunswick shopping thing, aren't they out of fashion yet?!- Do people still flock to these crap places that all look the bleedin same, with the same shops as every town/city in the counrty/world, the stale hot air, and always full of fat people and screaming brats. Get rid of it.
• The horrible 70's style thing behind the Grand Hotel ; part of the Townhall? Its evil. In fact, anything built in the 60's/70's, the decades that taste bypassed.Replace ithem all with Victorian style/Gothic, something beautiful for a change.
• that fucking old burned out cinema near st.thomas street
• Dapper
• police station
• barrowcliff estate
• Gillys on`t seafront
• The Royal Opera House. derelict for years and a total eyesore.
• Pampered Pets
• The toilets behind Boyes. Stink of piss. ( funnily enough )
• alma hotel on albermarle cresnt-its full of snides!!!
• Brunswick Centre....poor excuse for a shopping centre as it has no decent shops and there's never anywhere to sit. Full of wasters spitting over the balcony. FLATTEN IT NOW!!!!
• The old YMCA needs to be flattened. It's probably rat infested. But will they knock it down. No. The damn things a listed building.
• Someone obviously decided that the Brunswick Pavilion was a great example of modern architecture, enough to demolish the original store and replace it with this monstrosity. Oh, and the Sea Life Centre's pyramids don't fit in with their background; they belong on the planet Mars or something.
• The outdoor swimming pool buildings - eyesore or what!
• The 'Brunswick Pavilion', a big fat mountain of capitalism in the centre of town, built about six years ago by Debenhams, is about as attractive as my arse. From the outside and the inside it looks like a fucking prison.
• Pavillion House - appaling
• Marshall House on St Nicholas Street
• The tourist information center
• Police Station and the Grand hotel
• The Brunswick Pavillion is a poor excuse for a shopping centre. Rip it down and biuld it again!!!!!!!!
• The Royal Opera House on St Thomas Street

The Best Things

• sea air, the beach, the surprising clean sea water,
• pubs and the skaters and bmxers that live there...well the proper ones anyway
• con club, privelige, casino...nuff said
• Rocky's shop!
• Knowing Everybody. West Pier F.C.
• The nice people, nice town, clean... not scabbie at all!
• peoples humour to live in a town like this i feel a right comedian for keep coming back
• as someone who has to return to the dump by the sea, at xmas to see the family, the one thing not mentioned is boxing day. when EVERYONE is out on the piss, full of xmas cheer. you get to see people you only ever see once a year, and catch up. however this day really, really is only thing about scarborough that does not make you suicidal within 10 mins of arriving. anywhere pround that jimmy saville lives there needs massive amounts of help. if everyone just moved away, scarborough would simply cease to exist and that would only be a good thing. until thing all you do is hope that it falls into the sea, and takes everyone who thinks scarborough is a great place with it.
• n/a
• The Sand The women and their white scrunchies The feeling that the 80's never really left The Stephen Joseph Theatre
• the beach the pubs the people
• The A64 out of town, Wetherspoons for decent beer in a grotty place, the hospital cos I was born there!
• Slappers whatever the weather wear fuck all and are always willing to shag in a variety of open-air spots (Olympia Gardens, York Place, Grafitti Square and up against the skip behind XS are particular favourites.)
• as a born scarborian i have to admit there isnt anything good about scarborough anymore
• being near the sea.
• pubs the sea
• I'm leaving in May.
• Neck a couple of acid tabs at about midnight, wander thru Dean Road cemetery, onwards into Peasholm Park, into the Open Air Theatre, along North Marine Drive (especially during the winter when the sea's really rough), then up to the castle and look down onto the old town & Scarboro seems fucking great.
• Getting out of there when I was 18 and going to an even bigger shit hole Hull
• Arcades on the sea front, but due to the new parking scheme, incredibly hard to get to for long.
• music, surfin, blading, skating , drugs, alcohol, WOMEN,beating up townies, road kill
• There are still a lot of positive points about our town. I have seen a lot of the world already, and travelling narrows the mind (and the drums get ever louder) as the rest of the world is full of the same problems, but usually ten-fold. If you don't like your tax-and-crime-subsidised holiday here, Mr Just-released-but-soon-to-get-another-pitifully-short-stretch-wessie, you know what to do.
• the train out
• Scarborough Football Club, The Hole in the Wall pub, the Marine Drive, the North Side.
• Scarborough is a really nice town to live in, especially in Winter when there are no tourists. Although many people have put a lot of negative remarks about the town I feel I need to defend it because it is a beautiful place and the people are all really friendly. The North Bay and South Cliff are lovely spots and even the South Bay is not too tacky compared to other coastal resorts.
• Fantastic place to vegetate. No one will force you to get a "good job": there aren't any. The town at the end of the world welcomes all deviants and sucks them into its great melange of dope boredom.
• The sea, but not the filthy beach. At all.
• The sea, the hills, the weather, the older buildings, the romance.
• usually happen somewhere else
• the beach and .... thats it.
• sea, soft drugs and unemployment
• People who are trying to push our town forward and bring in new ideas
• fuck all! Scarborough is the best thing if you are a phoedophile or cerial rapists its a great holiday for ex-convicts!
• Running into the sea at 3 in the morning after a post club kebab. Also that every TV program in the north have filmed there and a few feature lengths aswell: Heartbeat, Peak Practice, Little Voice, That program with Martin Clunes about a stagnight, where he fell in love with his stripper. OHHHHHHH Harbour Bar yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
• The National Student Drama Festival. Held at the Spa, and most of the other theatres in the town, every Easter. See lots of very good theatre for only a few pounds. The arts information officer at the University will have all the information!
• Great fish and chips, nice B&B's, the Coffee Bean cafe ( superb breakfasts )
• the smell of the green cliff lift [is it still green?] beside the spa, getting soaked by the waves [full of shit and shit] at the old pool with my dad at high tide when I was 4..... ahhh, memories!
• The Esplanade on the South Cliff is lovely - beautiful views, a refreshingly cool breeze in summer, elegant gardens and a peaceful atmosphere.
• The 'Danny Wilde' experience!
• The Winter, when there are no tourists.
• The sea, climbing into the castle at night (so I've heard), I'm sure there's something else good about Scarborough but after 2 and a half years I still haven't found it. I give it 6 more months.
• The fish and chip shop at the top of St Thomas street.
• Friendly, atmosphere, lively in the summer season, and, of course the sea!!!

The Worst Things

• townies/snides askin you to lend them 10p, fags etc. boy racer townies trying to run you over on shitty 'peds or cars with whiny engines...the fact that townies arnt being culled like the fucking seagulls...both create a fucking stink, nick your chips and shit on your car bonnet.
• TOWNIES
• the council for not premoting projects for the younger generation instead of for the people who come here to die
• Snides, Snides everywhere
• The Council seem to be totally unprepared to invest good money, time and effort in looking after Scarborough. Things like the old victorian pool are just rotting and no-one seems to care. This place can be really beautiful, but if no-one is prepared to look after it, then we are going to end up with a place that no-one will want to visit or live in.
• The Sewage The North Sea Winds The Old Misery Gut people The Young no hoper people The fact that we wont get cable for another 10 years The lack of gay clubs But most annoying is the lack of tolerance
• the growing plague of townies and wannabe 'thug hip-hoppers' who think they know everything about rap cos they listen to Eminem and 2-Pac... somebody needs to skool them on peeps like Half-Breed and the Dayton Family, ARGH wannabes!!!
• The usual things, going to work when everyone's on holiday, the stink of overused fat to fry the chips, coming into town on the A64, Eastfield estate
• All the smacked up cunts who should be sent out half a mile with all the other shite and dumped in the sea.
• underage drinkers, junkies, pickpockets, parking scheme, scarborough borough council
• scarborough is like fly paper for all the snides, townies, trendies, and kappa slappas. Don't come to scarborough; you'll only regret it.
• southern hotel owners, and the vast amount of arseholes who come to live here after being kicked out of everywhere else. GET A JOB!!!!!
• dodgy fourteen year olds in planet
• I have to stay here until May.
• wankers who slag the place off. got a problem. DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT YOU NO MARK WASTERS.
• Running out of ganja and class A's. Having your driving licence revoked. The shop on North Marine stopping selling single fags.
• I was born and bred in Scarborough and its the biggest shite hole ive had the misfortune to live in. When you move away from the place you realise how petty and smallminded the place is. Example: The most famous and most respected person from the place is a fat pedophile with a BEARD on the barrowciffe estate who deals drugs to kids (yes you all know who i'm talking about who live there, no names mentioned though) and everyone thinks he's a hero. Bwahahahahaha@you all who have stayed there. Oh and lets not forget that the only jobs there are either at amusements or mccains (must be great pay, not). It probably has one of the highest unemployent rates in the country. The crime rate is also probably one of the worst (especially car crime!!!). The police there are brutal (although to be fair with the scum they deal with every day who can blame them). Oh! and if your a visitor dont even think about hanging around any of the city center pubs or nightclubs, you are likely to get assaulted by one of the many goups who hang around there thinking they are 'hard' (message to police please lock these idiots up) Basicly its a shit hole, yes its very scenic and im sure if you dont encounter any trouble while your there its a very nice place to visit. But try walking around edgehill/eastfield/barrowcliff (which is the majority of scarborough) on a night and leaving with your wallet/clothes/car/life intact!
• people dropping like flies due to the huge smack problem
• Hmmm, have i room?
• gettin ur nob amputated with a rusty cheese grater
• Sticky-fingered wessie smack-heads. And before you berate me for having a "small-town mentality", a relative of mine was mugged and died for £80 by...... you guessed it. They are back on the streets already (though fortunately for them not Scarborough streets).
• The local pensioners they will not queue while waiting for a bus
• All the losers and wasters who drag the town down. Total absence of beautiful women. The fact that when you step off the train at Leeds after being in Scarborough for a while you realise Scarborough is in a time-warp.
• The Council don't seem to know what they're doing and the new parking scheme which they will soon be introducing will be a complete disaster, especially for locals who live near the town centre. We also need to stop inviting ex-inmates, the unemployed, etc to come and reside here.
• The dull dull dull drug people. Who cares if it ever gets legalised or not. The ironic aspects of Trainspotting Twin Town et al seem to have passed Scarborough by. What can you expect in a place where the ability to deal a nine bar and skin up huge bifters relentlessy all night confers celebrity status. Half-witted petty criminials become folk heroes of deluded youths. There are trog many hydroponic gardenersa from Halifax. Badger Baiting Bullies from Barrowcliffe are accorded respect. Decent endeavours can make no headway against the terrible apathy.
• Tourists, townies, and of course, seagull poo.
• Brunswick Shopping Centre ; Modern life is rubbish
• Suggest the chab objecting to 'English people' gets out of England, or goes and lives in Brixton/Birmingham - if they can hack it.
• lots of snides hanging around everwhere.
• Mormons and goths.
• could have a top ten each week
• Scarborough is served by little strips of licorice jokily called A-ROADS !!!! Anywhere else they would be called B-ROADS or bridlepaths. Summer is just great when one cowshit cadillac holds up ten miles of traffic.....hint hint if you're coming to this town in the summer for your hols DON'T !!!!!!!!
• tourist, soil heads and shite police
• Small-town minds....
• the paranoia and the violence
• Silly children who have nothing better to do than undo the good work created by thier elders.
• people who use this site to write an offensive load of mis-informed rubbish
• WEZZIES, especially August wezzies, They trample on our turf, litter our beach show their awful bodies off to anyone who doesnt care to look, Then yell at us if we dont cook their bloody hamburger right.
• Yorkshire Coast Radio ( comedy station )
• no skate park,druggies and snides!!ohh yeah and boy racers
• The weather. Seagulls shit on you too.
• Shitty nightlife. Full of townies.
• it's full of english people
• To be blunt, the tourists. They buy everything in the shops leaving us poor Scarborians with nothing. All right, folks, we'll take your money; but that doesn't mean you've got the right to turn the seafront into a trash can.
• Buoys' (you know that horrible shop that sells rubbish cheap!
• Full of Leeds & Man. Utd wasters.
• The Summer, when there are loads of tourists.
• Cold, dull, hilly, cold, windy, wet, cold. The weather mainly.
• The traffic lights system on Falsgrave in summer.
• The building they built instead of the Pavilion Hotel
• Absolutely nothing to do here..........LEAVE NOW WHILE YOU STILL CAN
• Bloody seagulls, dodgy torists and lack of music venues.

The Knowhere Guide started out as a list of places to skateboard in the UK. It is a compilation of (unedited) information and views supplied by users like yourself. It is not a conventional tourist guide!

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Last updated: 2008-02-28