Prestatyn Holiday Camp

The GWR connection

In 1947 George Allen & Unwin Limited published a book on behalf of the GWR which was entitled 'Next Station - a railway plans for the future'. It outlined bold plans to redevelop all areas of interest to the company, not least of which was the hotel estate. This included the building and operation of new holiday camps in conjunction with Thomas Cook & Son Ltd., similar to the one already operated by them at the time in Prestatyn. These and other plans were never progressed before the railways in Britain and all their assets were nationalised in January 1948.

Prestatyn Holiday Camp

This 58 acre seafront camp was built as a joint venture between Thomas Cook and the LMS railway. It was officially opened on June 24th 1939 by Lord Stamp, chairman of the LMS, who jointly controlled it with Thomas Cook via a subsidiary company, British Holiday Estates Ltd.

Designed to be an upmarket family holiday centre it was famed for its modernistic architecture, especially the Hamlyn Tower which, at a height of almost 100ft, became a well known Prestayn landmark and offered panoramic views of the coast and nearby hillside to those visitors willing to climb the stairs to its observation platform. The buildings were designed by William Hamlyn, architect for the LMS, and it boasted 900 chalets accommodating up to 2,000 guests. Each chalet was described as being "...fitted with baths and hot and cold showers and are excellently furnished", and the camp as having "...a fine ballroom, gymnasium, sun-trap dining hall, and lounges, and a spacious swimming pool with a terraced lido adjoining" and "...ample sports facilities with eight hard tennis courts, bowling green, croquet lawn, billiards, and running-track."

In common with other camps of this era it was a full board facility which meant that all meals were included and were taken in the huge communal dining hall which could accommodate 1750 people in one sitting. Week-long stays cost £3/3/6d and, for an extra charge, tea ladies with a trolley and urn would wake campers with an early morning drink.

Thomas Cook had planned to open a string of other similar camps around the country but the camp at Prestatyn remained the first and only one.

On 3rd September 1939, only months after its official opening, a young Royal Signals Second Lieutenant arrived at the gates of the holiday camp to be met by holidaymakers still enjoying a late summer break. He had bad news as the site was to be requisitioned as a military camp for use by the Royal Signals, initially to provide accommodation for No 2 Signal Training Centre.

We are grateful to Trevor Dodswell of 69aIntandane for making available some images of a brochure from 1953. It contains a wonderful insight into life at the holiday camp at the time. Fully inclusive holidays were being advertised at prices varying from £6/15/0 per adult for the week beginning May 23rd to £8/15/0 a week in high season before falling back to £7/0/0 for the week beginning September 5th. The following week saw a slightly higher price of £7/15/0 for the 'International Festival of Sequence Dancing'. There were special rates for children up to the age of 10 and between 10 and 14 years of age, but there was a note advising that "...Children under 2 cannot be accommodated."

Mealtimes were very organised as the brochure explained '...There's no queueing for meals here; you have your own place at your own table and there is only one sitting. The Dining Room is magnificent, the menus varied andthe food plentiful - three good meals every day served by waiters and trim waitresses. Breakfast 8:30a.m., Lunch 1 p.m., Dinner 6:30 p.m., with children's tea at 5 p.m. except on Saturdays and Sundays.'

Food rationing had been gradually eased since flour came off rationing in 1948. On May 19th 1950 rationing ended for canned and dried fruit, chocolate biscuits, treacle, syrup, jellies and mincemeat, with tea following in October 1952. Confectionery rationing did not end until February 1953, butter in the May of that year and sugar in the September. Controls on the sale of pork were still in force until February 1954 and on July 4th meat, bacon and all other food rationing was ended in Britain. Given that background, and the fact that all meals were provided, it is not surprising that the brochure reminded guests to hand in their ration books when registering at the camp. Apparently the books could be collected on the Thursday before daparture.

A colour brochure from 1961 declared: 'The best camp ever on the coast of lovely Wales... and so cheap too.'
Inside, the brochure continued: 'What a wonderful camp Prestatyn is! So bright, so spacious, and as clean as a new pin. And what a beautiful situation too, right on the seafront by a stretch of lovely golden sands and an extensive newly-built promenade. Not that you’ll always want to sit by the seashore, there’s so much on in the camp: fun at the splendid swimming pool, deck games on the famous ‘Clipper’ by the children’s paddling pool, sports of all kinds, tennis, bowls, cricket and netball on the spacious playing fields, dancing, a continuous round of entertainments and a delightful children’s corner, where kiddies can be left in safety while parents enjoy themselves. There is no camp in Britain which has such lovely pavilions or such well-built and well-fitted chalets. They are superb, lit up by a blaze of flower beds and trim green lawns. Sitting under a gay umbrella in the Sun Court by the lily pool, you might be in the South of France.'

By 1963 the cost of staying at the camp had risen to 'from £8.15.0 per week all in' and to £9 in 1965, but the late 1960s saw a downturn in business as customers started looking for freedom and flexibility rather than organised entertainment and strict mealtimes. The camp responded by converting some of the chalets to self catering and introduced static caravans.

The camp was sold in 1975 to Pontins who, in 1971, had opened a brand new self catering holiday camp also in Prestatyn. This latter camp featured in the infamous 1973 Reg Varney film Holiday on the Buses. Pontins announced a massive investment to convert the entire site into self catering. It was renamed 'Tower Beach' and the following year 15 brand new two storey chalet blocks were built to the standard Pontins design, each equipped with a kitchen and lounge. More old chalets were converted and the caravan park was expanded with an area for touring caravans and tents being added. A small indoor pool was built and the old outdoor pool was filled in. It differed from other Pontin camps in that an extra charge was made to use the camp facilities with the swimming pool, snooker room, and the evening entertainment complex having a separate admission fee. This was reflected in the cost of actually staying there however, and Tower Beach was the cheapest Pontin's self-catering camp.

It came as a surprise therefore when at the end of 1984, only a few years after much investment, the camp was closed by its then owners and was left abandoned for almost 20 years. Its derelict chalets and rusting tower were used by the police for riot control training and by film and TV companies to provide a bleak back-drop for productions which included the 1999 Granada Television sci-fi series 'The Last Train'. In 1978, Pontins had been sold to Coral who in 1980 were taken over by Bass Brewing, who then sold Pontins to a management buyout team in 1987 who sold it again in 1989 to Scottish & Newcastle. Over the next ten years that company closed or sold off a number of sites with the result that by 2000 the company was operating only eight camps. The land occupied by Tower Beach Holiday Camp was sold to developers and the site was cleared in 2001. It is now a housing estate known as 'Tower Gardens'.

The following three photographs were all taken by Ian Wright during February 2001 and are reproduced from the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales collection with their kind permission. (The images are © Crown Copyright: Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales and © Hawlfraint y Goron: Comisiwn Brenhinol Henebion Cymru)

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