MrElaineous and I have taken to playing what I suspect is a very common middle-aged game: when did we last visit such-and-such location?
Of course, some of our confusion stems from the pandemic. Two years were excised from our mental timeline, making precise estimates even trickier.
The seaside town of Weston-super-Mare is the latest place to enter the guessing cycle.
“Were we married when we were here? Or was it before?”
A shrug.
“I’m not sure. I just remember that it was windy, and we got sand in our eyes.”
We eventually narrowed it down to 15 years, plus or minus two years. In other words, it’s been a very long time.
Beyond the sand, our memories of Weston were of a seaside town that had been left to decline for decades. Rundown buildings with peeling paint, garish arcades, derelict attractions, and seaside tat dominated the landscape.
It’s an impression that’s supported by the town’s history.
Weston-super-Mare—a French and Latin hybrid meaning Weston on the Sea—indeed sits on the western edge of the Bristol Channel, home to the second highest tidal change in the world after Canada’s Bay of Fundy. For some reason it was decided that this would make for a good seaside resort, despite the miles of dangerous mudflats that appear at low tide.
That didn’t bother the Victorians. The railway arrived in 1841, making the town accessible to an increasing number of middle-class holidaymakers and day-trippers. Numerous hotels and grand buildings were constructed to lure in visitors from the South West and Midlands.
And it worked. Weston was very popular for a number of years, boasting two piers, dozens of hotels, and I assume more fish and chip shops than you can shake a stick of seaside rock at.
The problem began in the 1960s as cheap overseas holidays began to take over the market. Why would you go to Weston-super-Mare and see the same old thing if you could travel to Spain or France for a similar price?
It’s a fate that befell many British seaside towns, and a lot currently range in status from “merely tired” to “utterly dilapidated”.
Weston was somewhere around the middle of this spectrum during our last visit, whenever it was, but something happened in the intervening years to begin to reverse the town’s fortunes.
That something was the British graffiti artist known as Banksy.
In 2015 he launched his biggest artistic project to date, a “bemusement park” known as Dismaland. This was a dark, satirical take on Disneyland, with installations about climate change and pollution, war and refugees. Despite being less fairy tale and more dystopia, the attraction drew in 150,000 people over five weeks and managed to put the spotlight of the world’s media onto the town.
As the pandemic began to clear in 2022, the public art installation known as See Monster was plunked down along the seafront. Based around a decommissioned North Sea oil rig, See Monster contained cascading gardens, slides, and kinetic sculptures. It was equal parts science experiment and playground.
These installations were instrumental in changing how Weston saw itself: it was no longer a faded seaside town whose glory days were behind it. Instead, it was an edgy, artistic place that was in the middle of reinventing itself.
And that, in part, brings me to why I found myself in Weston-super-Mare on a recent weekday in August.
One reason was to see an art exhibition at the Weston Museum. It closes at the end of the month, so I’m not going to write much about it, other than to say that if you’re a fan of the author Terry Pratchett and have the opportunity to see an exhibition of Paul Kidby’s art—go.
The other reason was to see what is known as Weston Wallz. This is a collection of street art painted by local and international artists over the past several years. As a result, Weston has become the largest open-air gallery in the South West, with over 75 permanent murals on display.
I imported the map of street art locations to my phone and we were off, navigating through parts of the town I had never seen before. It was a brilliant way to look beyond the seaside to experience the town as a whole.
Yes, many buildings still need a fresh coat of pain or at least a good clean. But you also got the feeling that this was a place in transition, of becoming something new for the 21st century. If, like us, you haven’t been to Weston in a while, it’s well worth giving it a second chance. You may be surprised what you discover.
