The sun was so bright, the sky & the sea like a Turquoise, the air so balmy,” Queen Victoria wrote giddily in her diary on the first day of a holiday on the Isle of Wight in 1845, having stopped only for a quick spot of lunch on arrival before racing down to the beach to feel the sand beneath her feet and sift for shells with her daughter Vicky. She may have been the monarch, but she was as enchanted by the seaside as any of her subjects.
Britain’s splendid array of coastal resorts had been charming its royals for over half a century by the time she gazed out at the Solent that day. Scarborough in North Yorkshire is thought to have popularised the
