Lytham St Annes Spitfire

There's a Spitfire sitting on the seafront at Lytham St Annes, and it's exactly the sort of thing that stops you in your tracks when you're walking along the promenade near Blackpool. This isn't a museum piece locked behind glass - it's a proper piece of wartime history planted right where locals and visitors pass by, a reminder of the RAF pilots who flew from here during the Second World War.

The aircraft itself is a restored Supermarine Spitfire, one of the most iconic British fighters ever built. You can see it from the street without fuss, and there's something oddly moving about coming across it unexpectedly between the ice cream shops and chip vans. Kids find it genuinely exciting - the engineering is visible, the proportions are striking, and it connects to stories they might've heard about the war in a way that feels tangible.

History buffs will appreciate the significance: Lytham St Annes was a training base during the conflict, and this memorial sits as a tribute to those pilots. The seafront location makes sense - it's where the action was, where young men prepared and sometimes didn't come back.

It's free to view from outside, costs you nothing but a few minutes, and works brilliantly as a stop during a longer seaside walk. If you're staying at one of the caravan parks nearby - Manor House Glamping is closest at under three miles - it's the sort of local detour that adds character to a holiday. Don't expect crowds or queues. Just a Spitfire, standing there, doing its job.