Dr Kathryn Ferry
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seasideferry.bsky.social
Dr Kathryn Ferry
@seasideferry.bsky.social
1.7K followers 520 following 620 posts
Historian specialising in seaside, architecture & design. I write books, give talks and do a bit of telly.
Founder member @seasidenetwork.bsky.social
Fellow @royalhistsoc.bsky.social Rep'd by @pastpreservers.bsky.social
https://linktr.ee/kathrynferry
Posts Replies Media Videos
seasideferry.bsky.social
Been to the restored 1938 Saltdean Lido today on a recce for the upcoming @seasidenetwork.bsky.social symposium to be held in partnership with our friends @hbap1924.bsky.social
Full details will be available soon but you can save the date now to join us on *FRIDAY 26 JUNE*
February 16, 2026 at 8:34 PM
seasideferry.bsky.social
So many examples of living heritage at the seaside!
All the things in this image and much, much more.
Please do show your support via the quick and easy form
Thank you 😊
seasidenetwork.bsky.social Seaside Heritage Network @seasidenetwork.bsky.social · 3d
Have you shown your support for the Seaside Holiday as Living Heritage? Encompassing everything from a stroll on the pier to the tang of vinegar on your fish & chips this initiative seeks to recognise cultural heritage as it is practised.
Here's the quick form 🏖️🌊🍦
forms.office.com/pages/respon...
February 13, 2026 at 5:44 PM
Reposted by Dr Kathryn Ferry
danthompson33.bsky.social
Would you like a space to write, with sea views? Dan Thompson Studio are offering a desk at Marine Studios to a writer. You'll have your own desk, 24 hour access, seven days a week. Views over Main Sands, the studio is a five minute walk from the station, Turner Contemporary, and the Old Town.
February 12, 2026 at 2:41 PM
seasideferry.bsky.social
Golden Nugget amusement arcade #GreatYarmouth #Norfolk #England about the same date
February 10, 2026 at 5:56 PM
seasideferry.bsky.social
Very Olde-Worlde, seaside hotel interior designed to look like a historic country house
bexhillmuseum.bsky.social Bexhill Museum @bexhillmuseum.bsky.social · 6d
Metropole Hotel "Smoking Room With Sea View" Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex c.1910. #Bexhill #Sussex #Seaside #Holiday #Hotel #History #1910s
February 10, 2026 at 5:53 PM
Reposted by Dr Kathryn Ferry
c20society.bsky.social
BREAKING NEWS: We’re absolutely thrilled to announce that the Southbank Centre - the Hayward Gallery, Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall and skaters undercroft - has finally been Grade II listed by DCMS after a 35 year long campaign.

➡️ c20society.org.uk/news/southba...
The Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, Lambeth – London County Council (LCC) and Greater London Council (GLC) Architect’s Department, 1963-68 Image © Morley von Sternberg
February 10, 2026 at 7:03 AM
seasideferry.bsky.social
🥁 Drum roll please... My next book will be about the Victorian pier engineer and architect EUGENIUS BIRCH so I took the opportunity yesterday to visit the Scarborough Art Gallery exhibition about his 1877 Aquarium. Demolished in 1968 the building was an amazing Indo-Moorish fantasy - with fish!!
February 6, 2026 at 4:23 PM
seasideferry.bsky.social
The 3 #victorian incarnations of #Scarborough Spa as seen in paintings on display at Scarborough Art Gallery. First the Gothic Saloon by Henry Wyatt of 1839, then the music hall & observation tower of 1858 by Joseph Paxton & George Stokes, finally the current building by Verity and Hunt opened 1878
February 6, 2026 at 10:50 AM
seasideferry.bsky.social
Had an enjoyable afternoon filming inside #ScarboroughSpa - just too cold to film outside 🥶
It meant I got to have a look around which was most fortuitous as I'm currently researching an article on the Spa's architectural history
February 5, 2026 at 8:34 PM
Reposted by Dr Kathryn Ferry
sogorg.bsky.social
Discover the surprising story behind Britain’s Victorian drinking fountains with historian @seasideferry.bsky.social Learn how they transformed public health, the designs that sprung up, and the people they memorialise.
📅 7 Feb, 2-3pm Online via Zoom
Book now:
February 5, 2026 at 7:52 PM
seasideferry.bsky.social
The sand does NOT care how much your #beachhut is worth
February 4, 2026 at 5:03 PM
seasideferry.bsky.social
They had to get more chairs out for my U3A talk this afternoon - always a good sign! Now on the train heading for #Scarborough...
February 4, 2026 at 5:01 PM
seasideferry.bsky.social
My next talk is all about the #Victorian drinking fountain movement. Sounds niche now but it captured the nation from the 1850s and saved thousands of lives by the provision of free, filtered water.
Online THIS Saturday 7 FEB, book via the link
@thevicsoc.bsky.social
sogorg.bsky.social Society of Genealogists @sogorg.bsky.social · 15d
Discover your Victorian ancestors this February with our programme of talks & events.
Explore crime, hospitals, social reform, everyday life and practical research skills: from Jack the Ripper and Victorian detectives to tithe records and public health.
See what’s on and book:
www.sog.org.uk/events
February 3, 2026 at 12:26 PM
seasideferry.bsky.social
So, if you vote for Reform you're voting to get the old Tories back in again?
Hardly much of a reform is it?
Just waiting for Liz Truss to sign up now...
sturdyalex.bsky.social Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 21d
NEW: Suella Braverman has defected to Reform UK, shocking the many people who were sure that she had already.
January 26, 2026 at 1:33 PM
Reposted by Dr Kathryn Ferry
westcountrymodern.bsky.social
One for @seasidenetwork.bsky.social and @seasideferry.bsky.social: the end of the Victorian Teignmouth Pier has gone.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Pier washes away and railway sea wall crumbles as storm lashes South West
Part of a historic pier washes away and a sea wall next to a railway line crumbles as Storm Ingrid lashes Devon and Cornwall.
www.bbc.co.uk
January 24, 2026 at 12:37 PM
seasideferry.bsky.social
If you love the seaside please consider supporting this proposal to have it added to the UK's first inventory of #LivingHeritage 🏖️🌊⚓
seasidenetwork.bsky.social Seaside Heritage Network @seasidenetwork.bsky.social · 25d
We're supporting the nomination by @allanbrodie.bsky.social to include the #Seaside #Holiday on the UK's #LivingHeritage Inventory. If you believe holidays at the seaside should be recognised as part of our shared heritage please complete this short form:
forms.office.com/pages/respon...
Microsoft Forms
forms.office.com
January 23, 2026 at 11:19 AM
seasideferry.bsky.social
Really enjoyed taking part in @seasidenetwork.bsky.social seminar on 'Wonders of the Deep' yesterday. 102 people tuned in for talks on fisheries, fearsome interwar sea monsters (linked to geopolitics, maybe?) and my own paper on architectural seahorses. A recording will be available soon...
January 22, 2026 at 4:06 PM
seasideferry.bsky.social
The Government's new Town of Culture initiative has already got 2 potential seaside bidders - #Folkestone, Kent and #Scarborough, North Yorkshire. Both have loads to offer. Will any other seaside towns try and win the prize?
www.kentonline.co.uk/folkestone/n...
Kent seaside town tipped to bid for UK Town of Culture 2028
Council chiefs say a Kent seaside town’s bid for UK Town of Culture is “very tempting”.
www.kentonline.co.uk
January 21, 2026 at 3:21 PM
seasideferry.bsky.social
Another lovely brochure cover from @mikeyashworth.bsky.social PLUS my dog is called Juno! She is currently sporting a cone of shame after she ran at full pelt through barbed wire and had to be stitched up 😔
mikeyashworth.bsky.social Mike @mikeyashworth.bsky.social · Jan 16
A fine booklet detailing the seasonal sailings of the Steamer Juno on Clyde Estuary waters in #Scotland for summer 1930. It gives details of a wide range of steamings from the piers around the Clyde then one of the most popular local excursions. @seasideferry.bsky.social

↘️ flic.kr/p/2rS8faU
Daily Sailings by Steamer "Juno" : Season 1930 : London Midland & Scottish Railway : Glasgow : 1930 : cover . A fine wee booklet, with a colour cover, detailing the seasonal excursion sailings of the Steamer Juno on Clyde Estuary waters in summer 1930. It gives details of a wide range of steamings from the piers at Ayr, Troon, Ardrossan, Girvan, Millport, Largs and Arran. As well as timings the booklet contains a map and brief details of connecting trains from Glasgow and other local stations in Renfrewshire and Lanarkshire to allow for half day and full day trips. The former are also described as forenoon and afternoon using a word seldom seen now. The paddle steamer Juno was built for the Glasgow and South Western Railway's steamer fleet by the Clydebank Engineering and Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. in 1898 and passed to the London Midland & Scottish at Grouping in 1923. The vessel had seen active service as the minesweeper HMS Junior between 1915 and 1919. Withdrawn in 1932 Juno was broken up in Alloa that year and so this is the vessel in its final years of service. Under a blue sky and on calm waters the paddle steamer Juno is seen heading towards the viewer with seagulls wheeling and a rocky headland on the right. The lettering, with "Daily Sailings by steamer Juno" as title appears on the upper third.
January 21, 2026 at 2:41 PM
seasideferry.bsky.social
#scarborough is bidding to become the UK's first Town of Culture so I've been on BBC Radio York this morning to give it my backing. Would be amazing for our first seaside resort - created 400 years ago - to be our first Town of Culture 🤞
January 14, 2026 at 11:19 AM
seasideferry.bsky.social
I'm currently without mains water which makes me realise how much we take it for granted.
Few Victorian houses had water supplies so public drinking fountains were a revolutionary innovation. To learn more about their history join me online on Sat 7 Feb
portal.sog.org.uk/Event/view/1...
Pure and Free: The surprising history of Britain’s Victorian Drinking Fountains with Kathryn Ferry
Talk on Zoom by Kathryn Ferry, historian, author, lecturer and broadcaster
portal.sog.org.uk
January 11, 2026 at 6:28 PM
seasideferry.bsky.social
The light was so gorgeous when I visited #Portmeirion last year to research my @countrylifemag.bsky.social article - these pics should help take you away from a grey January day to sunny North Wales 😎 Happy 100th birthday Portmeirion.
January 9, 2026 at 6:33 PM
seasideferry.bsky.social
Just been to the supermarket and seen that my article celebrating the centenary of #Portmeirion is the cover feature for this week's @countrylifemag.bsky.social
What a nice start to the year!
January 7, 2026 at 4:25 PM
seasideferry.bsky.social
@thevicsoc.bsky.socialy My nomination for the next Top Ten endangered buildings list is the former Shapland and Petter factory at #Barnstaple in North Devon. It's been allowed to deteriorate for years so really needs help
December 31, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Reposted by Dr Kathryn Ferry
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
One of the best '30s tourist guides I've seen in a while. The colourful covers to the Official Guide to Southsea & the City of Portsmouth issued by marvellously named Piers, Beach & Publicity Committee of Portsmouth Corporation. @seasideferry.bsky.social #portsmouth #holidays

↘️ flic.kr/p/2rK8GSQ
One of the best such holiday resort "official guides" I have seen in a while and the colourful covers, in a then popular spiral binding unusual for such a publication, were designed by Pool's Advertising Service Ltd. The book was edited by J.M. Scott, the Director of the Entertainments, Publicity and Trading Department of the Corporation and printed by C.H. Gee & Co. Ltd. of Leicester. It gives details as to the many attractions of Southsea as a holiday resort as well as of the City of Portsmouth, especially its naval links and history. The cover shows part of the Promenade and one of the town's piers - with a splash of orange/red flowers lower right upon which the text in black is centred. Above - the greens of the formal gardens and flanking the blue sea the strip of promenade and beach. Across the top is a pier stretching out to sea.
December 5, 2025 at 4:53 PM