Tourism, Fish & Family Fun

Tourism, Fish and Family Fun. . Great Yarmouth's fishing industry, and its fledgling tourism trade, received a shot in the arm in the 1840s. The arrival of the railways meant that fresh fish landed in the morning could be on sale in the towns and cities of the Midlands and North the next. Rail travel also opened up the seaside to working people who were short of time and money., For more than 100 years. Great Yarmouth was a playground for everyone and a pioneering hub for the entertainment business. Two piers, the Wellington Pier in 1853 and Britannia Pier in 1858, were opened within a few years of each other. In 1903, the Winter Gardens were brought to Great Yarmouth by barge from Torquay. Incredibly, not one pane of glass was broken., Also in 1903, the Hippodrome Circus opened. Regarded as one of the seven wonders of the British seaside, it is Britain's only surviving circus building, and one of only three in the world with a floor that sinks into a pool., The famous Pleasure Beach opened in 1909. That same year the Colonial Exhibition was held in Paris. One of its highlights was a huge German rollercoaster. The owners of the Pleasure Beach in Yarmouth were so impressed with it that they bought it, took it to bits and shipped it here. It opened in summer 1932 and has been at the heart of Pleasure Beach ever since, handling 2500 passengers an hour one of only two surviving wooden rollercoasters in the UK., There's also a restored relic of more difficult times, the Venetian Waterways, which occupy a seven-acre park next to North Beach. Funded to help the unemployed after the world war one, and dug by hand, they opened in 1927, you can enjoy them today just as they were when they opened., No visit to Great Yarmouth is complete without a visit to Time and Tide. Set in one of the UK's best-preserved herring curing works, this award-winning museum is a treasure trove of Great Yarmouth life stretching back centuries and is only a 15-minute walk away.