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This CD-Rom charts the history of
seaside holidays in images, from their beginnings at the end of the 18th
century, the start of sea bathing as a fashionable cure in the 1800s,
the huge expansion in seaside resorts brought about by the coming of the
railways in the 1840s, day trips by paddle steamer and rail, the start
of visitors by omnibus in the 1920s, the rise of the holiday camp in the
late 1940s and 1950s, finishing in 1969.
The images include photographs,
advertisements, postcards and plans.
The photographs include Victorian
visitors to Minehead, Minehead esplanade in 1905, entertainments on the
pier at Weston super Mare in 1909, Minehead beach in c.1910 with bathing
machines, paddle steamers in 1910, amusements on the beach at Burnham in
c.1914, children paddling at Burnham in 1928, Minehead station,
Minehead sea front in 1935, and pony carriages on the beach at Weston
super Mare in 1969.
The advertisements include adverts
for hotels in Burnham and Minehead, and for day trips by rail on the
Weston, Clevedon and Portishead Light Railway.
The postcards are from Minehead
and Weston super Mare, and there is also one of the proposed pier at
Burnham, which was completed in 1858.
There is also a holiday camp brochure for Pontin’s camp
and a plan of chalets at Pontin’s Sand Bay Holiday Camp at Weston super
Mare in 1948, a plan of a holiday campsite at St. Audries Bay in 1951
and the “Smiling Somerset” 1935 tourist brochure. |
