Bright, Breezy, Bracing Bridlington: Part 2

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1920s, 1930s, 1950s, Bridlington

I’m very pleased to feature the second of two new guest posts from Peter Claxton recounting Bridlington Borough Council’s significant council housing programme and its vigorous efforts to promote the town as a seaside resort. (Peter has contributed earlier posts on the history of council housing in Cottingham.) He now focuses most of his research time on Kingston upon Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire during the 19^th and the first half of the 20^th century with particular emphasis on public health and housing.

…they were the best houses the Corporation had ever built, surpassing those in other parts of the town. (1)

In my previous blog I examined the varying fortunes of the two diverse parts of Bridlington, The Quay and Old Town during the nineteenth and first quarter of the twentieth century; a period that witnessed the start of municipal provision of housing for the working classes and support for the burgeoning leisure market. In this follow-up blog, I pick up the story as the demands placed upon the borough council by both the ‘local populace’ and ‘leisure interests’ intensify.

The actions of Bridlington Borough council during the 1920s mimicked those of many other seaside authorities. Bournemouth, Folkestone, and Southend had spent £171,000, £96,000, and £135,000 respectively on seafront attractions. (2) North of the harbour, new colonnade shelters and a wide deck promenade provided seating for 3000 people, as well as cover in the unlikely event of an inclement day by the North Sea. Nearby the new Beaconsfield tennis courts catered for the sportier type. However, further development of the north shore – as detailed in the Bridlington Corporation Act, 1920 – was scaled-back and attention switched to the south shore.

Beaconsfield tennis courts and colonnade shelters (EPW023156) ©Britain from Above

South of the harbour, 1926 witnessed the opening of the art deco New Royal Spa Hall, built at a cost of £50,000. Sadly, the pleasures derived from visiting this attraction were short-lived. Also, the golf course was now in municipal hands and work had already started on a new sea wall south of the Spa. Completed in 1928, it was named after the Princess Mary.

New Spa Royal Hall 1926 (EPW023157) ©Britain from Above

Yet not everyone benefited from the new attractions and rising visitor numbers. One disillusioned council tenant questioned how: (3)

The town expects to get any rates when all the people who are staying here are in camps. There are many like myself who depend solely on visitors.  

Although the change in the ‘holidaying habits’ of visitors affected many of the town’s residents financially, they also presented a new opportunity for the council. It quickly sought to accommodate campers on a purpose-built site south of the town. (4)

Committed to build on foundations recently laid, a lecture at the Spa Theatre by J.W. Mawson titled ‘Town Planning and the Future of British and Continental Health Resorts’ offered the council a way forward. (5) His father T. H. Mawson – once referred to as the Capability Brown of Empire – was a leading landscape architect and town planner. One-time president of the Town Planning Institute, he was offered the position of visiting lecturer following the founding of a chair in civic design at Liverpool University by Lord Leverhulme. 

Engaged to formulate both a statutory town planning scheme and a comprehensive development plan for the town and sea front, neither came to fruition. Inter-authority wrangling over apportioning costs relating to the town planning scheme and the radical nature of the proposed town and seafront redevelopment scuppered the council’s ambitions. Fortuitously, the council engaged the services of a bright young architect, Percy Maurice Newton.

Previously employed by the Corporation of Hull, Newton’s work at Bridlington – initially in the surveyor’s department – did much to secure the town’s position as a leading east coast resort. In the Old Town during the 1930s, his work included housing off South Back Lane, Marton Road and Baptist Place. Of the latter, a council member noted, ‘truly practical houses always were beautiful, and he thought those houses came as near to that category as any in Bridlington.’ (6)

Baptist Place

South Back Lane

Bridlington, 1938. National Library of Scotland, reproduced under a Creative Commons licence

Of the 3000 houses built in Bridlington between the wars, 635 were by the council. Yet Newton’s influence on ‘civic improvement’ was to be seen in more than just housing. And in 1930 the opportunity to display his talent presented itself. A new town hall – to replace the harbourside one lost to fire – was proposed and would be strategically positioned between the two parts of the town. Built in the late Wren style, (7) by local firm Smallwood & Sons, the £34,000 build did not place a significant financial burden on local ratepayers. Support from the Unemployment Grants Committee at Westminster reduced the debt to £12,950. (8) Complete with council chamber, offices and ballroom, the building boasted a fan-assisted ducted heating system and rubber surfaced walkways to aid noise reduction.

Bridlington Town Hall

But in January 1932 as the build was nearing completion, disaster struck the town. The 1926 New Spa Hall was also lost to fire. Newton was tasked with designing a replacement and the ambitious target of ‘opening for the season’ was set. Taking direct responsibility for the ‘build phase’, Newton ensured that the Spa Hall, built in 52 days, was ready for visitors by the end of July. His health suffered, and in response, an indebted council financed an ocean cruise holiday to aid his recuperation.

1932 Spa Royal Hall (EPW039058) © Britain from Above

Away from the seafront, Newton also designed a new Senior Elementary School. (9) Eventually catering for 800 children, the first phase of the St George’s School accommodated 400 boys and opened in 1935. The girl’s department followed in 1938. (10)

By the mid-1930s, the dated Grand Pavilion on the north shore was finally demolished. Newton’s 1937 replacement – regarded by some as his most aesthetically pleasing work – was built on the Victoria Terrace Gardens. It was later described as ‘visually … the most successful International Modern style building in East Yorkshire, [and] very much a symbol of a modern forward-looking resort.’ (11)

The new Grand Pavilion, photographed by R. Hartley

Bridlington, 1950. National Library of Scotland, reproduced under a Creative Commons licence

Across the road from the new town hall, the Newton designed Corporation Electricity showrooms opened in 1939. It was destroyed by enemy action in 1941 and later rebuilt. The municipal power station had closed in 1935 following the town’s connection to the National Grid.

With permission from Bridlington Local Studies Library

Seasonal visitor numbers increased significantly between the wars. With a resident population of around 20,000 during the 1930s, it was estimated that 60,000 visitors were in the town on August Bank Holiday 1935. (12) This was scant solace for the residents. Even the local fishing industry was in decline during this period.

Post 1945, the Corporation moved decisively in an attempt to alleviate the town’s two perennial problems, ‘winter unemployment’ and ‘lack of good housing’. To the south-west of the town a small industrial estate – for light industry – was built, and by the end of the decade, further industrial development would take place at Carnaby, on a former RAF airfield just to the south of the town. Yet in 1951, the town still had 13 per cent of males and 45 per cent of females employed in personal services compared to 4.5 and 20 per cent nationally. (13)

Attracting new industry to a seaside town often proved difficult. The possibility of a tannery – classified as a special industry – being established on the industrial estate was one such example. Deemed that it would have an adverse effect on the town’s major industry, leisure, the County Planning Officer remarked: (14)

A large proportion of the holidaymakers that come to Bridlington are desirous of leaving behind them such things as ‘special industries’ and would cease to come. If such were the case we might be left with a prosperous industrial estate but a decadent health resort.  

There was after all, the title of ‘King of watering places’ to take into consideration.           

With almost 1300 families requiring rehousing, the council compulsory purchased 86 acres of the Bessingby Estate. The award-winning West Hill estate designed by Clifford E. Culpin, welcomed its first tenants in 1949. (15) Close to 800 homes would eventually be built on the West Hill site; almost two thirds of the council’s post-war provision.

Proposed West Hill Estate site (EAW013984) © Britain from Above

Bridlington, 1950. National Library of Scotland, reproduced under a Creative Commons licence

West Hill Estate

As the council worked its way through its rehousing programme dark clouds were gathering. The well-established holidaying habits of the town’s loyal seasonal clientele were changing. Coach and rail travel still dominated through the 1950s, but when the axe fell on branch lines in the mid-1960s, Bridlington lost its direct link to both South and West Yorkshire. The motor car gave families the flexibility and freedom to choose alternative destinations. For some, sun, sand, and sangria beckoned.

By 1972 the council had completed its housing provision. Just over 1800 homes had been built by the local authority since 1913. But as with the demise of the Old Town 100 years earlier, Bridlington, yet again, had to re-evaluate its future. Local government re-organisations would come and go, borough status would be lost, and absorption into the area of the East Riding of Yorkshire Council would take place.

Today, many visitors are day trippers, others are owners of mobile homes or static caravans. The ubiquitous guest house still prevails, and the town continually seeks to find new ways to promote itself. Just as the words of a certain James Coates had 200 years earlier. (16)

Peers, knights, and squires, and dames repair

To bathe, and drink, and take the air.

Such situation on the coast,

Such air, such water, none can boast.

References

(1) Bridlington Local Studies Library, Annals 55

(2) Seafront regeneration briefing document, East Riding Archives, BOBR/2/15/4/518

(3) D. Neave, Port, Resort and Market Town: A history of Bridlington (Hull Academic Press, 2000 

(4) Hull Daily Mail, 26 April 1933

(5) Hull Daily Mail, 16 February 1927

(6) Annals55

(7) D. and S. Neave, Bridlington: An introduction to its History and Buildings (Smith Settle Ltd., 2000)

(8) Hull Daily Mail, 10 May 1932

(9.) Hull Daily Mail, 18 March 1931

(10)  Hull Daily Mail, 16 May 1938

(11)  Neave, Port Resort

(12)  Neave, Bridlington

(13)  K. L. Mayoh, Comparative study of the Resorts on the Coast of Holderness. unpublished M.A., University of Hull, 1961.

(14)  Hull Daily Mail, 1 March 1950

(15)  Neave, Bridlington

(16)  J. Coates, Bridlington Quay, 1813.

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Bright, Breezy, Bracing Bridlington: Part 1

Tags

1920s, 1930s, Bridlington, Pre-1914

I’m very pleased to feature the first of two new guest posts from Peter Claxton recounting Bridlington Borough Council’s significant council housing programme and its vigorous efforts to promote the town as a seaside resort. (Peter has contributed earlier posts on the history of council housing in Cottingham.) He now focuses most of his research time on Kingston upon Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire during the 19^th and the first half of the 20^th century with particular emphasis on public health and housing.

Bridlington in winter is a silent place, where cats and landladies’ husbands walk gently down the middle of the street.

T. E. Shaw – Lawrence of Arabia – in his observations on 1930s ‘out of season’ Bridlington, highlighted a problem that beset – and still does to this day – many of our seaside resorts, the lack of year-round employment. (1) Twenty years earlier when the borough council first contemplated the provision of housing, the Medical Officer of Health laid bare the problem to be faced: (2)

The Corporation will have to be very careful in tackling this question in the future. As Bridlington is a seaside resort the majority of the working classes do not desire workmen’s houses but larger ones, so that their income may be largely increased by taking in visitors.

The task was further complicated by the fact that Bridlington was a town divided, as the old Local Board had noted: (3)

The Old Town is mostly residential and takes the bulk of the labouring classes, whilst The Quay is chiefly occupied by lodging houses and private residences.

Bridlington 1849-50, National Library of Scotland, reproduced under a Creative Commons licence

The arrival of the railway in 1846 came to represent more than just a delineation on a map, it influenced the fortunes of each part of the town. Bridlington Quay was no longer a ‘harbour of refuge’ for the coastal trade or the port through which much of the East Riding’s agricultural produce – predominantly malt – was shipped. And as a result, the Old Town to the north-west slipped into an interminable decline. Within a decade of the railway’s arrival the 600-year-old market was in a state of atrophy. The residences and offices of solicitors, bankers and merchants, intrinsic elements of a former vibrant agrarian economy, were by the end of the nineteenth century, but marcescent reminders of its former standing as a market town. Attestation to the area’s demise was further evidenced by a plethora of insanitary working-class dwellings.

Conversely , as a late nineteenth-century trade directory noted: (4)

Bridlington Quay a mean and insignificant village at the commencement of the present century, [is] now a small but handsome town and seaside resort, with all the comforts and conveniences which [a] luxurious age demands …

The Alexandra Hotel (built 1866), North Bay, 1928 (EPW023341) ©Britain from Above

The Quay, to the south-east of the railway, was the new face of Bridlington, offering entertainment for those that came ‘for the day’ or ‘stayed a week.’ It was, ‘the seaside resort nearest to most of the great centres of population of the West Riding.’ (5) It also attracted the commuter and by 1921, more than 2,800 Bridlington residents worked in Hull or the West Riding, with many residing in villa style houses that populated the new roads close to the seafront. (6)

Cardigan Road

As such, the work of the district council – declared a borough in 1899 – differed at each side of the railway, and by the outbreak of war in 1914, it had erected new housing in the Old Town, and at The Quay, entered the world of entertainment and leisure.

Poster c1913, © Science Museum made available under a Creative Commons licence

Following a visit to Joseph Rowntree’s model village of New Earswick in 1913, it was suggested at a council meeting that: (7)

Rowntree’s cottages in York, they were no doubt excellent in many ways but they could not be erected by the council at anything like the price … Garden Cities – they were not always suitable or satisfactory or cheap.

Words that clearly identified the problems to be faced by the borough council. There was no local benefactor ready to fund provision; agricultural wages were depressed, and other forms of employment predominantly seasonal. These issues would be reflected in the design and size of properties erected. Maximum weekly rents were to be in the region of five shillings (25p) per week, in fact the council hoped that smaller properties might be let at less than four shillings (20p).

Also, there were members on the council associated with the building trade, evidently nervous of the possibility of stepping away from traditional methods of construction. Letchworth was cited as an example, where as well as standard brick construction, alternative build techniques had been introduced. It was noted that ‘many were becoming cracked and [were] generally too-well ventilated.’ (8)

By 1914, the council had built 35 terraced houses – with ten allocated to employees working at the town’s power station – and twelve bungalows. Yet it suffered criticism regarding rents and in particular, the bijou nature of the bungalows for ‘old couples and widows.’ At 300 foot super the three-roomed dwellings were exceedingly small. As a councillor insensitively questioned, ‘How on earth was a fat woman to turn in a scullery such as was proposed …’ (9)

With the town’s sleeping population often quadrupling during the summer months, the sub-letting of rooms became an imperative for many families. (10) The council signalled acceptance of the practice confirming: (11)

[It] had no objection to the taking in of visitors. If they could make a little money that way it would help to pay their rents.

This was a perennial problem for both council and tenants. The council saw the wisdom in building smaller houses, thereby reducing the risk of unpaid rents during the winter months. Tenants were keen on larger properties to augment their income during the summer.

Watson’s Balk (Avenue)

Marton Road

Bridlington, 1926. National Library of Scotland, reproduced under a Creative Commons licence

Bridlington, 1926. National Library of Scotland, reproduced under a Creative Commons licence

Ashville Street – council employee housing

Portland Place – council employee housing

Bridlington, 1926. National Library of Scotland, reproduced under a Creative Commons licence

Indeed, there were opportunities galore for those with spare room to let. The privately built New Spa south of the harbour attracted 80,000 visitors within a month of opening in 1896. (12)

© East Riding Archives – made available under a Creative Commons licence

The council responded to the lack of amenities on the North Shore in 1904, erecting a glass and iron Floral Pavilion adjacent to the bandstand on the Royal Princes Parade.

The Floral Pavilion and Bandstand – Bridlington Local Studies Library

Two years later it built the Grand Pavilion at the north end of the Royal Princes Parade. With a seating capacity for 2000, it was in the popular ‘oriental end of pier’ style favoured at many seaside resorts.

The Grand Pavilion – Bridlington Local Studies Library

Everything of course changed in August 1914. A provincial weekly publication summed up the town’s plight perfectly: (13)

But the place had a strangely deserted appearance, where it was usual to see thousands, there were only hundreds. You may write to half-a-dozen boarding houses, and find that any one of them can spare you a room or rooms…  

The town’s Medical Officer of Health’s comments were far more revealing: (14)

Owing to the outbreak of war in August the season proved a failure, … there is no doubt that many spinsters and widows, who rely upon their income and livelihood to come from visitors, are on the verge of starvation.

In 1919, the council’s intentions were made clear when it purchased the 1907 Spa Theatre and Opera House, as well as the original 1896 Spa. The future of the town and its residents, rested with the development and promotion of the resort.

Spa Theatre and Opera House

North-west of the railway, municipal attention turned once more to the town’s permanent residents. But the vagaries of employment in both agriculture and leisure remained. The local Master Builders’ Association continued its crusade for larger properties: (15)

What is needed in a seaside resort is a house of a rather larger type, with sufficient accommodation to enable tenants to augment their income by taking visitors during the season.  

The council’s vision of the way forward, was however, diametrically opposed to that of local builders. There were to be no lavish plans for an inordinate number of large council houses each with spare rooms to rent out. A perceptible change in the ‘holidaying habits’ of those that came to stay for a week  had been noted. Visitors were starting to choose, ‘… camp sites for cheaper holidays free from the irksome rules of boarding houses.’ (16) The age of the tent, converted railway carriages or buses, ex-army huts or wooden bungalows had arrived. (17).

A photograph taken by R. Hartley in the 1930s

In tandem with private provision, house building gradually brought the two parts of the town together. Following a modest build of twelve houses in 1921 on the aptly named Borough Road, construction of the Postill estate began two years later. By the middle of the decade the council had erected approximately 200 properties.

Bridlington, 1926. National Library of Scotland, reproduced under a Creative Commons licence

Borough Road

Postill Estate

Postill Estate

Sadly, an attempt to promote home ownership during the 1920s failed to gain traction. A proposed ‘purchase out of rent’ scheme attracted a mere six inquiries and was swiftly shelved by the council. (18) At the same time, a briefing document regarding the regeneration of the seafront reiterated: (19)

Apart from the fishing industry there are no established industries in the Borough which is purely a health and pleasure resort for the large industrial populations …

The document informed that visitor numbers arriving by train ‘during the season’ had risen from 216,000 in 1922, to 320,000 by 1925, (20) and the town had to move with the times. Visitors were now seeking, ‘… music and entertainments as evidenced by the popular craze for dancing.’ (21) It would take a substantial amount of money, approximately £100,000, and the council was convinced that this was the way forward.

Disappointingly, no matter how busy the seafront was during the summer, it could never sustain the whole town through the winter months. But, as we shall see in a follow-up blog, efforts to increase year-round employment proved contentious. And when ambitious plans for the regeneration of the seafront failed to come to fruition, a subsequent appointment by the council proved fortuitous.

References

(1) R. Knowles and P. Clabburn, Cats and Landladies’ Husbands: T.E. Lawrence in Bridlington (The Fleece Press, 1995)

(2) Borough of Bridlington Medical Officer of Health Report, 1911, wellcomecollection.org

(3) District of Bridlington Local Board & Urban Sanitary Authority Report for 1893, wellcomecollection.org

(4) T. Bulmer & Cos., Directory of East Yorkshire, 1892

(5) D. Neave, Port, Resort and Market Town: A History of Bridlington (Hull Academic Press, 2000)

(6) D. and S. Neave, Bridlington: An Introduction to its History and Buildings (Smith Settle Ltd., 2000)

(7) ‘The Housing Problem’, Bridlington Free Press, 31 January 1913

(8) ibid

(9) ‘12 Cottages to be built’, BFP, 20 March 1913

(10) Neave, Port Resort

(11) ’Visitors and Workmen’s Houses’, BFP, 26 September 1913

(12) D. and S. Neave, Bridlington: An introduction

(13) ibid

(14) Borough of Bridlington Medical Officer of Health Report, 1914

(15) ‘Boarding-Houses Preferred’, BFP, 1 March 1920

(16) D. and S. Neave, Bridlington: An Introduction

(17) ibid

(18) ‘Purchase out of rent scheme’, Hull Daily Mail, 28 April 1927

19. Seafront regeneration briefing document, East Riding Archives, BOBR/2/15/4/518

(20) ibid

(21) ibid