It was my bday last week and I was desperate for a good old fashioned lemon top. Alas, even though they sell those at basically every seaside town on the coast of NE England, we apparently picked the exception.
Got this lemon swirl as a backup and it was pretty good, ngl. It was no lemon top though, I'm still a bit salty a week later.
Imagine your typical Mr. Whippy ice cream, usually in a waffle cone because why would you want any other kind of cone. But then a swirl of lemon sorbet on top of the ice cream. As opposed to this swirl thing that is just vanilla and lemon ice creams jumbled together.
When I was little it was a special treat to be allowed a lemon top that was "all lemon" but in hindsight that's probably cheaper for the shop :D
It's very regional. They're from Redcar and you can only really get them on Teesside and the imeediate surrounding areas (I'm guessing the swirl pictured is in Saltburn).
When I first went to the seaside further North and discovered that Lemon Tops weren't a thing I was devastated!
That was indeed Saltburn! But you get them all the way up to Shields and down to Scarborough I think (maybe even souther than Scarborough, that's the furthest I've had one, maybe I need to go find out for science)
Edit: Also just been informed by a southern friend that they have them there but they're called "lemon ices". TIL.