Minehead, Beach Hotel And Avenue 1923

Photo ref: 74990

More about this scene

Touring theatrical companies and concert parties played at the Queen's Hall (see 69242, pages 76- 77), including famous names such as Pavlova and her ballet company, and Solomon the pianist. It also doubled as a cinema, with Minehead's first talkie films being shown there in 1930. Along with the building to the left, it is now part of an amusement arcade, yet much of the original façade remains intact. The building to its right was the Strand Café, now the Strand Restaurant. To the right of that, what looks like a building under construction was the framework for a tented theatre known as the Arcadia. It stood on the site of an open air theatre which had hosted pierrot shows. This tent was in turn replaced by a wooden building which, after the Second World War, became the Gaiety Theatre. It was demolished in 1979 to make way for the Carousel, now K's, amusement arcade. Inevitably, the wide street of the Promenade soon became a popular place to park the car, look at the beach and eat an ice cream. It has little changed in that function since. Warren House, an ancient cruck-framed building, situated adjacent to the Warren marshes behind the promenade, was the home of the warrener, who was a gamekeeper for the Luttrell family. The house once had a lookout on its roof to watch for herring shoals. The Warren is now occupied by the Minehead and West Somerset Golf Club course, which was laid out in 1882; originally a nine-hole course, it quickly expanded into an 18-hole course. Warren Road remained private with its own gateway until the 1950s. A barrier was put down one day a year to establish the owner's rights. At the same time there was a toll for use of the road and the beach, which belonged to the Luttrell family as Lords of the Manor.