‘Where Do Heritage Trails Go to Die?’ Stepping Out at the British Seaside

Abstract

Heritage trails are an established feature of the British tourism and leisure landscape. Trails not only help us learn about place but are an intriguing cultural form, shaped by a cultural politics of destination marketing and geographical imaginaries that spatialise the cultural heritage of place in different ways, emphasising local, transnational and global ‘claims to fame’. This chapter is an exploratory account of the types of heritage trail that can be found at the British seaside. It provides a typology of coastal and seaside heritage trails which helps to account for different social and economic objectives inherent in the trails as well as different forms of collaboration and participation in the making and delivery of the trail experience.