Skegness

Skegness ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the East Lindsey District of Lincolnshire, England. On the Lincolnshire coast of the North Sea, the town is east of Lincoln and north-east of Boston. With a population of 21,128 as of 2021, it is the largest settlement in East Lindsey. It incorporates Winthorpe and Seacroft, and forms a larger built-up area with the resorts of Ingoldmells and Chapel St Leonards to the north. The town is on the A52 and A158 roads, connecting it with Boston and the East Midlands, and Lincoln respectively. Skegness railway station is on the Nottingham to Skegness (via Grantham) line.

The original Skegness was situated farther east at the mouth of the Wash. Its Norse name refers to a headland which sat near the settlement. By the 14th century, it was a locally important port for coastal trade. The natural sea defences which protected the harbour eroded in the later Middle Ages, and it was lost to the sea after a storm in the 1520s. Rebuilt along the new shoreline, early modern Skegness was a small fishing and farming village, but from the late 18th century members of the local gentry visited for holidays. The arrival of the railways in 1873 transformed it into a popular seaside resort. This was the intention of The 9th Earl of Scarbrough, who owned most of the land in the vicinity; he built the infrastructure of the town and laid out plots, which he leased to speculative developers. This new Skegness quickly became a popular destination for holiday-makers and day trippers from the East Midlands factory towns. By the interwar years the town was established as one of the most popular seaside resorts in Britain. The layout of the modern seafront dates to this time and holiday camps were built around the town, including the first Butlin's holiday resort which opened in Ingoldmells in 1936.

The package holiday abroad became an increasingly popular and affordable option for many British holiday-makers during the 1970s; this trend combined with declining industrial employment in the East Midlands to harm Skegness's visitor economy in the late 20th century. Nevertheless, the resort retains a loyal visitor base. Tourism increased following the recession of 2007–2009 owing to the resort's affordability. In 2011, the town was England's fourth most popular holiday destination for UK residents, and in 2015 it received over 1.4 million visitors. It has a reputation as a traditional English seaside resort owing to its long, sandy beach and seafront attractions which include amusement arcades, eateries, Botton's fairground, the pier, nightclubs and bars. Other visitor attractions include Natureland Seal Sanctuary, a museum, an aquarium, a heritage railway, an annual carnival, a yearly arts festival, and Gibraltar Point nature reserve to the south of the town.

Despite the arrival of several manufacturing firms since the 1950s and Skegness's prominence as a local commercial centre, the tourism industry remains very important for the economy and employment but the tourism service economy's low wages and seasonal nature, along with the town's aging population, have contributed towards high levels of relative deprivation. Poor transport and communication links are barriers to economic diversification. Residents are served by five state primary schools and a preparatory school, two state secondary schools (one of which is selective), several colleges, a community hospital, several churches and two local newspapers. The town has a police station, a magistrates' court and a lifeboat station.

Geography

Topography and geology

thumb|right|Skegness's built-up area in 2020. The dark beige shading represents residential and commercial areas; the light beige areas are caravan parks; the grey area is the industrial estate; the parish boundary shown as a dashed red line.

The civil parish of Skegness includes most of the linear settlement of Seacroft to the south and the village of Winthorpe and the suburban area of Seathorne to the north, all of which have been absorbed into the town's urban area. The neighbouring parishes are: Ingoldmells to the north, Addlethorpe to the north-west, Burgh le Marsh to the west and Croft to the south. The town is approximately north-east of Boston and east of Lincoln.

Skegness fronts the North Sea. It is located on a low-lying flat region called Lincoln Marsh, which runs along the coast between Skegness and the Humber and separates the coast from the upland Wolds. Much of the parish's elevation is close to sea level, although a narrow band along the seafront is above peaking at on North Parade; the A52 road is elevated at ; there is a short narrow bank parallel to the shoreline between the North Shore Golf Club and Seathorne which is above sea level.

The bedrock under the town is part of the Ferriby Chalk Formation, a sedimentary layer formed around 100 million years ago during the Cretaceous; it runs north-west from Skegness in a narrow band to Fotherby and Utterby north of Louth in the Wolds. The surface layers are tidal-flat deposits of clay and silt, deposited since the end of the last ice age. The shoreline consists of blown sand and beach deposits in the form of clay, silt and sand.

Coastal erosion

There has been coastal erosion in the area for thousands of years, Records from the Middle Ages show that local people maintained sand banks as a form of sea defence; fines were levied for grazing animals on the dunes, which could weaken the defences. Skegness was flooded in 1525 or 1526, requiring the village to be rebuilt inland, and loss of land continued during the century. A clay embankment, Roman Bank, was built in the late 16th century and was followed in c. 1670 by another closer to the sea (Green Bank), running from what is now North Shore Road to Cow Bank, following a line from St Andrew's Drive to Drummond Road. By the late 19th century, sands were accreting at Skegness; the retaining sea wall erected in 1878 was designed to support the resort town's seafront development rather than to protect it from the sea. Nevertheless, this wall largely saved the town during the 1953 flood, when only gardens, the amusements and part of the pier were damaged.

In the early 21st century, Longshore drift carries particles of sediment southwards along the Lincolnshire coast. Modern sea defences have been built along a stretch of coast between Mablethorpe (to the north) and Skegness to prevent erosion, but currents remove sediment and the defences hinder dune development; a nourishment scheme began operation in 1994 to replace lost sand.

Climate

The British Isles experience a temperate, maritime climate with warm summers and cool winters. Lincolnshire's position on the east of the British Isles allows for a sunnier and warmer climate relative to the national average, and it is one of the driest counties in the UK. In Skegness, the average daily high temperature peaks in August at and a peak average daily mean of occurs in July and August. The lowest daily mean temperature is in January; the average daily high for that month is and the daily low is .

Population change

The poll tax returns for 1377 recorded 140 people living in Skegness over the age of 14; in 1563 there were 14 households, and in the late 17th century there were ten families. The first census of the parish was conducted in 1801 and recorded a population of 134. It had risen above 300 by 1841 and reached 366 ten years later, before dropping back to 349 in 1871. Following the initial development of the seaside resort, the population rose rapidly, and represents about 18% of the district's population.

Ethnicity and religion

According to the 2011 census, Skegness's population was 97.6% White; 1% Asian or British Asian; 0.4% Black, African, Caribbean or Black British; and 0.9% mixed or multi-ethnic; and 0.1% other. The population is therefore less ethnically diverse than England as a whole. 94.2% of the town's population were born in the United Kingdom, compared with 86.2% nationally; 3.5% were born in European Union countries other than the UK and Ireland, of which more than three quarters (2.7% of the total) were born in post-2001 accession states; for England, the figures were 3.7% and 2.0% respectively. 1.8% of the population was born outside the EU, whereas the total for England was 9.4%.

In the 2011 census, 68.2% of Skegness's population said they were religious and 24.9% said they did not follow a religion, very similar to England as a whole (68.1% and 24.7% respectively). However, compared to England's population, Christians were a higher proportion of the Skegness population (66.8%), and all other groups were present at a lower proportion than the national rates. There were 8 Sikhs in Skegness, making up a negligible proportion of the population compared with 0.8% nationally; Hindus composed 0.1% (compared with 1.5% in England), Muslims 0.5% against 5% nationally, Jewish people 0.1% compared with 0.5% for all of England, and Buddhists 0.2% of the town's population, contrasting with 0.5% nationally.

East Lindsey has a high proportion of elderly residents, driven partly by high in-migration and by the out-migration of younger residents; the local authority has described this as a "demographic imbalance". A 2005 study by the town council reported that for every two people aged 16–24 who left the town, three people aged 60 or above moved in. The 2011 census showed Skegness's population to be older than the national average; the mean age was 44.3 and the median 46 years, compared with 39.3 and 39 for England. 21% of the population was under 20, versus 24% of England's, and 32.2% of Skegness's population was aged over 60, compared with 22% of England's population.

Workforce and deprivation

{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed floatright"

! colspan=3 | Economic characteristics of residents aged 16 to 74 (2011) Employers also find it difficult to attract higher skilled workers, including chefs; a report prepared for the town council cites a lack of "work readiness" among young people as a common problem facing employers. The proportion of residents aged 16 to 74 with no qualifications was 40.8%, much higher than the national figure (22.5%); the proportion of residents whose highest qualification is at Level 1, 2 or 3 (equivalent to GCSEs or A-Levels) is lower in each category than the national population; 10.7% of the population have a qualification at Level 4 (Certificate of Higher Education) or above, compared with 27.4% nationally. The government's Indices of Multiple Deprivation (2019) place large parts of Skegness among the 10% most deprived parts of England; two of its neighbourhoods were ranked among the ten most deprived areas in Lincolnshire. There is limited research into the causes of deprivation in the town. A local official quoted by The Guardian in 2013 attributed high levels of deprivation to the seasonal and low-paid nature of work in the tourism industry, which constitutes a large part of Skegness's economy; and also the tendency for retirees (often in variable health) from former industrial areas in the East Midlands to move to the town and spend most of the year living there in caravans. In 2019, the town council listed several key challenges: the low-paid, low-skilled and seasonal nature of work in the tourism industry; a consequential dependency on benefits and a reduced tax base; the under-funding of public services; poor infrastructure; a lack of training for and consequent out-migration of talented young people; and difficulty attracting skilled workers.

As of 2020, trains run the full length of the Poacher Line and the Nottingham to Grantham Line to provide connections throughout the East Midlands; Nottingham, Grantham, and have direct connections, while , and require a change at Nottingham.

Opened in 1873, it was the final station on the Firsby–Skegness branch of the East Lincolnshire Railway. The number of people travelling by car and coach probably overtook the number using the train in the 1930s, a trend solidified in the post-war years. The station was earmarked for closure in the Beeching cuts in the 1960s, but a third of the summer visitors still used it and lobbying by the urban district council preserved passenger services. The line was nevertheless closed to freight traffic in 1966 and the main interconnecting line, the East Lincolnshire Railway, was dismantled from Firsby to Grimsby in 1970. The passenger timetable was reduced to save costs in 1977, but a full timetable returned in 1989 and improvement works were carried out in 2001 and 2011; the latter saw the old station master's house demolished.

Road

The A52 road from Newcastle-under-Lyme to Mablethorpe passes through Skegness, via Nottingham, Grantham and Boston. The A158 from Lincoln terminates in the town. The A1028 connects Skegness with the A16, which runs from Grimsby to Peterborough via Louth.

Buses

Omnibus services reached the village from Boston before the development of the resort;

Stagecoach Lincolnshire is the main bus operator in the town, with regular services on routes to Ingoldmells and Chapel St Leonards; there are Lincolnshire InterConnect services up the coast as far as Mablethorpe and inland to Boston and Lincoln.

Air

Skegness Water Leisure Park, located to the north of the town, has its own light aircraft airfield named Skegness Airfield (ICAO: EGNI), operated by Skegness Aerofield Club. It is equipped with two runways and PPR (Prior Permission Required) is required for landing. The airfield, since June 2025, has been closed to the public and is only accessible to the emergency services or by prior approval for authorised, private individuals.

The main international airport serving Skegness is East Midlands Airport at Castle Donington, south of Nottingham and approximately from Skegness. Humberside Airport, near Immingham in North Lincolnshire, is approximately away, but operates a much smaller range of passenger services.

Government and politics

Local government

thumb|The former [[Skegness Town Hall]]

Lying within the historic county boundaries of Lincolnshire since the Middle Ages, the ancient parish of Skegness was in the Marsh division of the ancient wapentake of Candleshoe in the Parts of Lindsey. In 1875, it was placed in the Spilsby Poor Law Union, but in 1885 Skegness became a local board of health and urban sanitary district. In 1894, Skegness Urban District was created in its place. The civil parish of Winthorpewhich had previously been part of the Spilsby union, rural sanitary district and, from 1894, rural districtwas abolished in 1926; most of it was merged into Skegness Urban District and a portion into Addlethorpe civil parish. In 1974, the urban district was merged with the municipal borough of Louth, the Alford, Horncastle, Mablethorpe and Sutton, and Woodhall Spa urban districts, and the rural districts of Horncastle, Louth and Spilsby to create East Lindsey, a district of Lincolnshire; by statutory instrument Skegness civil parish became the urban district's successor.

Skegness Town Council, the parish-level government body beneath the district council, is composed of 21 councillors from four wards: Clock Tower (1 seat), St Clements (7 seats), Winthorpe (5 seats) and Woodlands (8 seats). There are seven representatives for Skegness on East Lindsey District Council, which uses different wards: three councillors are returned for Scarbrough and Seacroft ward, and two each from St Clements and Winthorpe wards. Skegness sends two councillors to Lincolnshire County Council, one each for Skegness North and Skegness South divisions.

Skegness Urban District Council meetings were held at 23 Algitha Road until 1920, when the authority purchased the Earl of Scarbrough's estate office at Roman Bank for £3,000 and used those as offices; these burned down in 1928; a new town hall opened in 1931 and was later extended. In the 1950s, the council acquired for £50,000 the former convalescent home run by the National Deposit Friendly Society on North Parade (this had been built in 1927); this was converted into offices, which were opened in 1964. The town council took over the building and it continues as the town hall as of 2019.

National and European politics

thumb|Boston and Skegness parliamentary constituency

In national politics, Skegness fell within the Lincolnshire parliamentary constituency until 1832; in 1818 four residents were entitled to vote, and in 1832 there were seven electors. That year the county was divided up and the village was included (with all of Lindsey) in North Lincolnshire. In 1867, it was transferred to the new Mid Lincolnshire constituency, which was abolished in 1885, after which Skegness was placed in the Horncastle constituency. Another reorganisation saw the parish incorporated into the East Lindsey seat in 1983; this was abolished in 1995 and Skegness was transferred into the new constituency of Boston and Skegness. The incumbent MP is Richard Tice of Reform UK, who has held the constituency since winning it from Matt Warman of the Conservative Party in the 2024 general election. The constituency was previously a Conservative Party stronghold and was held by Conservative members of parliament since it was created. Between 1999 and the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union (EU) in 2020, Skegness was represented in the European Parliament by the East Midlands constituency.

At the first election after it was created (1997), the current seat was highly marginal, with the Conservatives receiving 42.4% of the vote and Labour 41.0%. By 2019 the Conservatives had increased their vote share to 76.7% (their second-highest nationally), while Labour's share had fallen to 14.0%.

The same period saw support for the Eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP) grow, reaching a peak in 2015, when it polled second and secured UKIP's second-highest vote share in any constituency in that election. The constituency is estimated to have had the highest vote share in favour of leaving the EU in the 2016 EU referendum, at 75.6%. In the aftermath the town became the focus of international media attention, with Reuters labelling it "Brexit-on-Sea" and suggesting that many of its residents were "more nostalgic and more socially conservative" than those in diverse, liberal, urban areas, and keen to see state funds paid to the EU redirected into supporting the town. Afterwards support for UKIP fell and the party did not stand in 2019,

Public services

Utilities and communications

As part of the Earl of Scarbrough's scheme, gas works were opened in the town in 1877 and were lighting the streets the following year. The works were extended in the 1920s. The UDC's gas company was nationalised in 1949 and its functions taken over by the East Midlands Gas Board,

The town's water works opened in 1879 and were extended in the 1920s. The first sewerage disposal system was designed by D. Balfour as part of the Earl of Scarbrough's development scheme; a sewerage farm and works were erected at Seacroft. The development was principally funded by the Earl, with a quarter of the funds contributed by the Spilsby Sanitary Authority. which was privatised as Anglian Water in 1989.

The Mid-Lincolnshire Electricity Supply Company brought electricity to the town in 1932. The company was nationalised in 1948 and its function taken over by the East Midlands Electricity Board. Street lighting was electrified in the late 1950s.

Skegness's first post office opened in 1870; it moved premises in 1888 and 1905, before moving to Roman Bank in 1929. As of 2020, Royal Mail's Skegness Delivery Office operates there; Post Offices also operate on Burgh Road and Drummond Road in Skegness, and at Winthorpe Avenue in Seathorne. A wireless telegraph station operated at Winthorpe from 1926 to 1939.

Emergency services and justice

thumb|Skegness lifeboat station

In 1827 the village was afforded its first police constable, which it shared with Ingoldmells. The town's first police station opened in 1883 on Roman Bank. In 1932, Skegness became a divisional police headquarters. Its current building opened in 1975. Criminal cases were heard in Spilsby until Skegness was granted its own petty sessions in 1908; these operated only during summer until 1929, when cases were heard there year-round; a court opened on Roman Bank that year. The building was replaced in 1975 and the Spilsby magistrates court closed in 1980, transferring all cases to Skegness. A station was added to the Town Hall on the corner of Roman Bank and Algitha Road in the late 1920s. A new station was built on Churchill Avenue in 1973. The current lifeboat station was built in 1990.

Healthcare

Skegness and District General Hospital opened in 1913 as a cottage hospital; it underwent major redevelopment works in 1939, was taken over by the National Health Service nine years later and extended in 1985. As of June 2020, it is a community hospital run by the Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust; some of its services are provided by the United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust (ULH). It contains two in-patient wards, with 39 beds (including three in palliative care) and its services include a 24-hour, walk-in Urgent Care Centre. ULH runs Accident and Emergency departments at Lincoln County Hospital and Pilgrim Hospital in Boston. As of 2020, the town has two GP practices (on Hawthorn Road and Churchill Avenue), four dental practices (three on Algitha Road and one on Ida Road), and three opticians. There are community mental health services provided at Holly Lodge. There is a health centre on Cecil Avenue and the hospital includes a contraception and general health advice centre.

Education

Skegness's first elementary school was established in 1839. Winthorpe's first schoolhouse opened in 1865. As part of Lord Scarbrough's town plan, Skegness National School opened on Roman Bank in 1880; in 1932 it was replaced with another elementary school, Skegness Senior Council School, which existed until it became a secondary modern school in the 1940s. As of 2020, the town is served by five coeducational state primary schools, four of which are academies: the Skegness Infant Academy (established when the infant school became an academy in 2012); Skegness Junior Academy (which replaced the Junior School in 2012); Seathorne Primary Academy (which replaced Seathorne Primary School in 2019); The Richmond School; and Beacon Primary Academy (opened as a new school in 2014). As of 2020, one private primary school operates in the town: The Viking School, which opened in 1982.

Before 1933, the only secondary education available to Skegness's children was at Magdalen College School, a grammar school in Wainfleet. In 1933, it closed and was replaced by the coeducational Skegness Grammar School, which opened in the town The passage of the Education Act 1944 made secondary education compulsory for pupils aged 11–15 from 1945. The Skegness Secondary Modern School opened as a result; it was renamed the Lumley Secondary Modern School in 1956. Another school, the Morris Secondary Modern, opened in 1955. They merged in 1986 to form the Earl of Scarbrough School, which closed in 2004 and reopened as St Clements College, a community school which converted into Skegness Academy in 2010. It is coeducational and has a sixth form; at its 2020 Ofsted inspection, it was assessed as "requiring improvement". There were 893 pupils on roll in that year, out of a capacity of 1,340.

Both of the secondary schools provide education for pupils aged 16–18. First College, which formed in 2000 following a merger of the East Lindsey Information Technology Centre (East Lindsey ITeC) which had opened in Skegness in 1984; and the Skegness TEC, which in 2017 replaced the Lincolnshire Regional College in Skegness (founded in 2009).

Religious sites

right|thumb|St Matthew's Church, Skegness (Anglican)

The three Anglican places of worship are the churches of St Clement and St Matthew in Skegness, and St Mary's Church in Winthorpe. St Clement's and St Mary's have medieval origins. When the seaside resort was being planned in the 1870s, St Clement's was too small and far from the new town so the much larger St Matthew's Church was built on Scarbrough Avenue and consecrated in 1885. As of 2020, services are usually held every Sunday in St Matthew's, and in St Mary's and St Clement's on all but the first Sunday of the month. The parishes of Skegness and Winthorpe were united in 1978; The parish forms part of the Skegness Group, which includes the parishes of Ingoldmells and Addlethorpe. It is in the Calcewaithe and Candleshoe rural deanery in the archdeaconry and diocese of Lincoln.

Skegness also has a Roman Catholic church, the Church of the Sacred Heart on Grosvenor Road; it has been based there since 1950, having previously occupied the town's first purpose-built Catholic church since 1898.

As of 2020, Skegness Methodist Chapel on Algitha Road holds services on Sundays and mid-morning prayers on Mondays. St Paul's Baptist Church also holds regular Sunday services. The Salvation Army has had a unit in the town since 1913 and built its citadel on the High Street in 1929; it remains in use as of 2020. The Assemblies of God Pentecostal Church was registered as a charity in 1996; it later changed its name to the New Day Christian Centre and moved to new premises in 2011; as of 2020 it operates on North Parade as The Storehouse Church and, as well as running church services, provides Skegness's only food bank. As of 2020, there is a seventh-day adventist church on Philip Grove.

In 2019, East Lindsey Council approved plans for a mosque and community centre on Roman Bank.

Culture

Visitor attractions

right|thumb|upright|Donkeys at Skegness, July 2005The Rough Guides describe Skegness as "every inch the traditional English seaside town". described as "sparklingly clean" by Rough Guides, Between 1 May and 30 September, dogs are banned from the beach. Donkey rides are offered for children there.

The seafront includes Skegness Pier, which houses amusements; to the south, Botton's Pleasure Beach is a funfair with roller coasters and other rides. The western side of Grand Parade houses amusements and eateries, Opposite the gardens is the Embassy Theatre. The town has an aquarium (Skegness Aquarium), which opened on Tower Esplanade in 2015. Further into the town, The Village Church Farm (formerly Church Farm Museum) contains exhibitions about historical farming life. A volunteer-run heritage railway, the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway, moved to Skegness in 1990 and opened to fare-paying members of the public in 2009; it operates along a length of track.

To the south of Skegness is Gibraltar Point, a national nature reserve, consisting of unspoilt marshland. It was among England's earliest bird observatories when it was established in 1949 and, as of 2020, is open to the public. Alongside walkways and paths, it has a visitor centre, café and toilet facilities.

Arts and music

Skegness Carnival operates as an annual event in August as of 2020; the town hosted its first carnival in 1898, but the modern event dates to 1933. in 2013 the district council estimated that it generated £1m for the area. In 1928, as part of the local authority's foreshore development, the Embassy Ballroom was built on Grand Parade. It was remodelled in 1982 and completely rebuilt in 1999 as the Embassy Theatre Complex, The town has two cinemas: the Tower Cinema (opened in 1922) and an ABC Cinema (opened in 1936), as of 2020.

The Skegness Boys' Brigade Band started in 1908; it was disbanded on the outbreak of the First World War. A new band was formed in 1923 or 1928, as Skegness Town Band, which later changed its name to Skegness Silver Band. The band continues to operate as of 2020. The Skegness Excelsior Band also operated in the interwar period.

Sport

Skegness is home to Skegness Town A.F.C., which plays at the Vertigo Stadium on Wainfleet Road; known as The Lilywhites, the club was founded in 1947 and has been in the Northern Counties East Football League since 2018. Another team, Skegness United F.C., folded in 2018. The town has a rugby club, Skegness R.U.F.C., which plays in the Midlands 4 East (North) division of the Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Derbyshire Rugby Football Union, and has a clubhouse on Wainfleet Road. Skegness Cricket Club traces its origins to at least 1877 and has its ground on Richmond Drive. There is also the Skegness Yacht Club, Indoor Bowls Club and Skegness Town Bowls Club. Skegness Stadium, just outside the town, hosts stock car racing. Seacroft golf course is a traditional 18-hole links course at the southern end of Skegness. It was designed by Willie Fernie and opened in 1900, replacing a 9-hole course built in 1895.

The Skegness Beach Race takes place annually on the beach. The event, organised by the Amateur Motor Cycle Association (AMCA), transforms the beach into a series of jumps and deep corners and features various races for motorcycles and quads.

Media

In 1922, the proprietors of the Lincolnshire Standard group of newspapers established a local version for the town, the Skegness Standard; it switched to tabloid in 1981; Founded in 2001, the East Lindsey Target became the East Coast and The Wolds Target in 2017, and continues as of 2020. Former newspapers include the Skegness Herald (1882–1917) and the Skegness News (1909–1964; revived in 1985 but merged into the Skegness Standard in 2007).

Skegness is covered by BBC Yorkshire and Lincolnshire and ITV Yorkshire. Local radio stations that broadcast to Skegness are BBC Radio Lincolnshire, Hits Radio Lincolnshire and Greatest Hits Radio Lincolnshire. Coastal Sound radio (founded in 2016) is a community radio service broadcasting from Skegness to the area and beyond by way of the internet.

Twin towns

Skegness is twinned with:

Bad Gandersheim, Germany

The arrangement, dating from 1979, is managed by the Skegness Twinning Association.

Historic buildings

thumb|upright=1.3|right|St Clement's Church, Skegness

Skegness's oldest buildings are the medieval churches of St Clement, in Skegness, and St Mary, in Winthorpe. St Clement's has a 13th-century tower; the rest of the building may be medieval, but probably dates to the mid-16th century when it is thought to have been rebuilt. There were restorations in 1884 and the 20th-century and it is grade-II* listed. and a medieval standing cross in the churchyard, which is a scheduled monument. Other buildings which predate the modern resort town include the Ivy House Farmhouse on Burgh Road, which dates to the mid or late 18th century, Church Farmhouse on Church Road, which dates to the early 18th century and hosts the Church Farm Museum, the 18th-century Church Farmhouse on Church End, Winthorpe, and the early-19th-century Burnside Farmhouse. The houses at 1–5 St Andrew's Drive are mid- to late-19th-century cottages and thought to have been built to house coastguards.

Parts of the Victorian development have been recognised for their special interest. These include the Church of St Matthew and the war memorial in its churchyard, and portions of original railings dating from the 1870s which are situated to the south and north of the clock tower; these are all grade-II listed structures. A large portion of the later esplanade, boating lake, land north of the pier and tower gardens is also grade-II listed. and The Ship Hotel (c. 1935).

Notable people

Skegness has been home to several people associated with the entertainment industry. Billy Butlin first set up his amusements stall on the seafront in the 1920s, opened the fairground rides south of the pier in 1929 and then established the first of his all-in holiday camps at Ingoldmells in 1936. Among performers connected with the town was the comedian Arthur Lucan, who grew up in the Boston area and busked in Skegness after leaving home. The actress Elizabeth Allan was born in the town. The rock singer and songwriter Graham Bonnet was born in Skegness in 1947. The comedian Dave Allen worked as a redcoat at Butlins early in his career. The disgraced clergyman Harold Davidson performed in a circus act in the amusement park in 1937 (while campaigning for his reinstatement to the priesthood), but died that year in the town after being mauled by one of his lions. The clown Jacko Fossett retired to Skegness.

Several notable religious figures either lived in the town or served it in some capacity: Edward Steere was curate from 1858 to 1862, George William Clarkson was rector from 1944 to 1948, Roderick Wells was rector from 1971 to 1978, and Kenneth Thompson lived in the town.

Local sportspeople include Anne Pashley (died 2016), the Olympic athlete and (latterly) opera singer, who was born at Wallace's holiday camp in Skegness in 1935. The footballer Ray Clemence was born in Skegness in 1948. The cricketer Ray Frearson (1904–1991) played for the Skegness team and died in the town. Among golfers, Mark Seymour died in Skegness in 1952, and Helen Dobson was born there in 1971.

Others with links to Skegness include the poet and art critic William Cosmo Monkhouse, who died in the town in 1901, and the novelist Vernon Scannell, who was born there in 1922. The former tabloid editor Neil Wallis started his journalistic career at the Skegness Standard in the 1960s. Reginald J. G. Dutton, who created the shorthand Dutton Speedwords, chaired Skegness Urban District Council. The naval officer Sir Guy Grantham was born in the town in 1900, as was the seaman Jesse Handsley, who served on Scott's first Antarctic Expedition; The chess champion and educator John Littlewood taught at the grammar school.