most disappointing UK city/place

BelgianBeerGeek

Let's not confuse "heck-hole" with "disappointing"

Most disappointing place in UK to visit - Chester. You would think it was nice, looking at tourist brochures etc and has pretentions of poshness, but it is truly awful.
And I used to live in Rhyl.

Giraffoto

The place my brother used to live was too quiet. Not too quiet like there was nothing going on, it was more like the final scene from The Wicker Man was going on just out of earshot.

KnightOfTheLongTights

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

DePreston

yes I'm from there and I can confirm that over the last 25 years all the very best of car-orientated 'town planning', out-of-town retail parks and good old 'multiculturalism' have turned the place into a right effing dump.

qube

Aberdeen... my home town.

Huge gulf between the haves and have nots.

House prices, congestion, grey buildings, rain, miserable people.

So sorry to see it turned into something it isn't.

KnightOfTheLongTights

bianchimoon wrote:

Western lakes promises so much until you visit towns such as St Bees, Grange over sands, Ulveston, barrow :?

What's wrong with Grange and Ulverston!? St Bees I don't know and Barrow is not the prettiest place but at least it has (one) functioning industry and jobs...
(sorry I get all protective over Cumbria)
Some of the western Lakes towns are a bit depressing for sure - Workington, Whitehaven - but they've got heart ...

ballysmate

Was disappointed with the Laurel and Hardy museum in Ulveston some years back.

bianchimoon

KnightOfTheLongTights wrote:

bianchimoon wrote:

Western lakes promises so much until you visit towns such as St Bees, Grange over sands, Ulveston, barrow :?

What's wrong with Grange and Ulverston!? St Bees I don't know and Barrow is not the prettiest place but at least it has (one) functioning industry and jobs...
(sorry I get all protective over Cumbria)
Some of the western Lakes towns are a bit depressing for sure - Workington, Whitehaven - but they've got heart ...

i love Cumbria, but grange over sands... I was expecting sands, instead it seemed to be grange over reeds (or weeds), a tired jaded old town that was probably the place to go in Victorian times.

KnightOfTheLongTights

bianchimoon wrote:

i love Cumbria, but grange over sands... I was expecting sands, instead it seemed to be grange over reeds (or weeds), a tired jaded old town that was probably the place to go in Victorian times.

heh, fair enough but I kind of like that sleepy victorian seaside town that time forgot thing - I think it's quite atmospheric ... plus there's a damned good tea room ... might not want to live there though!

Colinthecop

As a kid I used to go to a place called Betty Hill for my holidays. It's on the very North coast of Scotland.

It was great, the sun always shone, fresh air, miles and miles of sandy beaches and dunes. Lovely little village where people could only dream of living. I always thought if you lived there it would be like being on holiday everyday. 8)

After annoying my kids for countless years about how Betty Hill was nicer than any exotic foreign holiday they'd ever been on we took the plunge a couple years back and went there camping.

Jesus, what a shithole it was. Like a one horse town where the horse had packed up and moved on. Norman Bates had taken over the hotel I think....

We decided not to stay and left 10 minutes after arrivng.

Made me wonder how many other of my childhood memories are jaded. :?

schlepcycling

I can't believe no one has mentioned Slough, what a dump.

arran77

schlepcycling wrote:

I can't believe no one has mentioned Slough, what a dump.

Ah yes. as dear old Sir John Betjeman said.....

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now.

DeVlaeminck

simonhead wrote:

One place to add

Wroxham - norfolk broads, stunning location, nice town, killed by a gimmick of a shop

Had a lovely cruise of the Broads from there last Summer. Now I agree it did appear odd that the entire town centre seemed to be owned by one man who had turned it into one huge shop but is that shop really that bad ? If nothing else it provided a few laughs for the kids when every building turned out to be another branch of the same business.

crescent

Milton Keynes. Like visiting an industrial estate. So bad it barely inspires disappointment.

SCR Pedro

Crescent wrote:

Milton Keynes. Like visiting an industrial estate. So bad it barely inspires disappointment.

So, Livingston of the south?

lostboysaint

Having been to both I'd say that's not a bad comparison. They are both completely soulless, devoid of any kind of architectural merit or have any kind of inspiration about them at all.

crispybug2

My brother lives just outside Newmarket and runs a business in it. He describes the place thus...

50% Hoity toity

50% pikey

100% awful.

crispybug2

Mind you I can talk, I live in Southend on Sea. Even on a good day the town centre is the most dispiriting place I know and don't even get me started about the seafront!

PerformingMonkey

Gosport, Hampshire. A smaller, sh*tter Portsmouth...


...And Portsmouth is pretty dire!

capt_slog

DeVlaeminck wrote:

simonhead wrote:

One place to add

Wroxham - norfolk broads, stunning location, nice town, killed by a gimmick of a shop

Had a lovely cruise of the Broads from there last Summer. Now I agree it did appear odd that the entire town centre seemed to be owned by one man who had turned it into one huge shop but is that shop really that bad ? If nothing else it provided a few laughs for the kids when every building turned out to be another branch of the same business.

Jonathan Ross hates it.

VmanF3

Rochdale, Oldham, Bury...dreadful places - however can't imagine why anyone would visit those places out of choice.

Holiday destination that baffles me is Poole - full of skanks & yachties - not a good mix on a Saturday night!

lostboysaint

Gosport - yep, town centre is truly dreadful, but Alverstoke/Stokes Bay more than makes up for it.

Poole - again, town centre and Rossmore in particular are absolutely awful but there's plenty of parts of it that are truly lovely.

Philly8mt

My top ten .....

1. Mansfield
2. Mansfield
3. Mansfield
4. Mansfield
5. Mansfield
6. Mansfield
7. Rotherham
8. Hull
9. Skegness
10. Goldthorpe

bianchimoon

Cowes, was expecting so much more of the place but looked very jaded was expecting something a lot more upmarket

rolf_f

I'm amazed at the places that people are disappointed over. I mean. Mansfield, Rotherham, Hull, Skegness and Goldthorpe? Mr Philly8mt - what where you expecting? The dreaming spires of Oxford on the Lincolnshire coast? Venice transplanted to South Yorkshire? Monaco relocated to the Humber Estuary?

I'd have expected all the above to be dumps and would therefore not have been disappointed.

Philly8mt

Haha fair point sir!

fatsmoker

pinarello001 wrote:

Swindon

Leicester
Hinckley
...

Unfair. The thread title is 'most disappointing' which suggests you thought the place would be good but wasn't. Only a bloody fool could possibly think Hinckley and Leicester would be nice.

finchy

Loch Ness. I've been there three times and not seen a single monster.

Glen Nevis: "Come to Scotland, climb up a really small mountain and then get bitten by thousands of midges."

MaxwellBygraves

A lot of people in this thread not getting the meaning of the word 'disappointing'...

I'm gonna go with Padstow.

It's always packed, it's always full of arseholes and it's just full of shops selling overpriced tat to said arseholes. Need to take out a Wonga loan to pay for parking.

I was expecting a pretty Cornish fishing village with a bit of charm and character.

Pross

Yep, as a few have pointed out it's about disappointing rather than just being a dump - we've done that a few times and Alsager always seems to win. Having not been there I still can't contemplate it being worse than Corby or Skegness!

Whoever said Abergavenny supposedly has a foodie thing going on, that's basically just a weekend festival (which is this weekend by chance) other than that it used to have a renowned restaurant but that hasn't been the same since it changed ownership. Other than that it's a typical struggling market town that has even lost it's livestock market. The one thing it does have going for it though is great scenery

simonhead

MaxwellBygraves wrote:

A lot of people in this thread not getting the meaning of the word 'disappointing'...

I'm gonna go with Padstow.

It's always packed, it's always full of arseholes and it's just full of shops selling overpriced tat to said arseholes. Need to take out a Wonga loan to pay for parking.

I was expecting a pretty Cornish fishing village with a bit of charm and character.

Good call on Padstow