Putting the Great back in Yarmouth
By Joanna Peios
A visit from street artist Banksy in the summer of the staycation 2021 brought renewed attention to Great Yarmouth, but there’s always been a vibrant cultural arts scene, which continues to grow and thrive.
With its long sandy beach and Golden Mile of family-friendly amusement arcades, funfairs and crazy golf, Great Yarmouth has been a much-loved ‘bucket and spade’ holiday destination for generations. The third largest seaside resort in the UK, tourism contributed over £591 million annually to the local economy and remains a bedrock of the economy. There is also a burgeoning offshore energy industry and new opportunities in offshore wind and culture-led urban regeneration.
Nevertheless, the town has entrenched problems that are hard to ignore: relatively high levels of unemployment, especially during the winter, and a high concentration of deprivation. Despite these challenges, investment in culture and heritage is playing a large part in bringing up the economic prosperity of the area.
Part of Great Yarmouth’s regeneration plan is to restore the Winter Gardens back to its former glory. The Grade II-listed landmark is the UK’s last surviving Victorian seaside cast iron and glass winter gardens, and has won a £10 million lottery grant, part of a £16 million restoration to convert it into a heritage, arts and education hub. This complements the recently restored Venetian Waterways and a £26 million Marina Centre leisure complex on the Golden Mile due to open in summer 2022.
The Great Yarmouth Preservation Trust has also been key in driving regeneration in the community by bringing back into use heritage buildings such as The Yare Gallery, a Grade II-listed 17th-century merchant’s house on South Quay, which is now a free-to- visit art gallery that showcases local and international art, with a changing programme of six exhibitions a year.
It is around South Quay/King Street that a vibrant community and arts scene is emerging, also known as ‘mini-Portugal’ due to its large Portuguese-speaking community and the multitude of lively bars and cafes. Social enterprise Reprezent Project, headed up by art curator Ruben Cruz, has been instrumental in drawing visitors to its street art trail and bringing art to the streets through its Street Gallery Walls, commissioning over 30 vibrant murals dotted around the town, including one at historic Lacons Brewery on Main Cross Road and Market Gates.
In the heart of this cultural quarter is the creation space The Drill House. The engine room for arts development charity Out There Arts, it’s also a multifunction venue for circus, outdoor arts, creation, entertainment and culture. ‘What’s developed and emerged is a contemporary art scene that isn’t dismissive or reactive to Yarmouth’s popular entertainment past, in fact, it’s the opposite. It’s in that accessible seaside entertainment tradition,’ says Joe Mackintosh, chief executive of Out There Arts. ‘High-quality but both economically and intellectually accessible art that is free in a public space is becoming quite a feature of Great Yarmouth throughout the year.’ Much of this work is showcased annually at the Out There Festival, the region’s largest free festival of street arts and circus attracting audiences in excess of 60,000 people. ‘Great Yarmouth is the UK capital of circus. There is no other town or city in the country that has anything like the strength and depth of circus arts,’ says Joe.
The iconic Hippodrome was built by the circus showman George Gilbert in 1903, and alongside the circus it also hosted political rallies by Lloyd George, and shows by illusionist Houdini and comedian Max Miller. Designed by architect R. S. Cockrill, it is Britain’s last surviving purpose-built circus building. Its unique central ring is designed so that it can be lowered into a 60,000-gallon tank of water for aquatic displays. Today the Hippodrome is a family operation, run by Peter and Christine Jay and their sons, Jack and Ben, hosting blockbuster circus productions featuring world-class international circus acts.
St George’s Theatre is Great Yarmouth’s only year-round theatre, housed in a Grade I-listed former chapel on King Street. The BBC Concert Orchestra has a three-year residency starting in 2022 with aims to raise aspiration, provide learning pathways and improve people’s well-being through community collaborations with world-class musicians, digital artists, producers and arts managers. ‘The Concert Orchestra will be bringing a range of inspirational activity that will involve many local young people and adults discovering, creating, producing and performing music together, developing skills, broadening of audiences for orchestral music, and contributing to the cultural infrastructure and living heritage of east Norfolk,’ says Stuart Bruce, senior creative producer of Orchestras Live.
Art studios and exhibition space Primeyarc – a 60,000-sq-ft venue in the former Debenhams in Market Gates Shopping Centre – presents an evolving programme of exhibitions and events for Great Yarmouth residents and visitors to enjoy, most of which is free to access. Managed by artist- led charity originalprojects;, it is a space for creative collaborations.
