Barry Island – the making of a resort

A remote wilderness

By the early 1700s, industry was transforming the land, and with the belief in the health benefits of sea air and sea bathing, coastal tourism increased. Remote areas of Britain were considered too wild and inhospitable to visit, as well as difficult to access by horse or buggy. The aristocracy tended to travel to the continent for health and pleasure. But wars with France stopped travel to the continent for a period and the wealthy began to explore remote areas of Britain instead. By the 1790s, a mostly uninhabited Barry Island attracted rich and aristocratic visitors who preferred its wild location and gently sloping sandy beaches.

Accommodation could be found at the single farm lodging house on the Island, or in rooms or cottages in nearby Cadoxton village. By 1840, accommodation providers in Cadoxton were advertising in regional newspapers. Cottages to rent with ‘splendid views over the Bristol Channel’ and promises of air so pure that villagers lived to ‘great ages of over eighty years’!

By the early 1800s steamboat excursions from Bristol anchored off Barry Island, where middle-class pleasure seekers were ferried to shore by row-boat.

The railway comes to Barry Island

In the 1870s, the Island attracted development, and the Marine Hotel opened. For a time though, the owner of the Island, Lord Windsor, banned visitors and developers. In the 1880s, he struck a deal with Rhondda coal mine owners led by David Davies, to build a coal export dock in Barry Sound, with new rail links. A 19 mile railway was built linking Trehafod in the Rhondda to Barry, and a new road across Cadoxton moors took a couple of miles off the journey from Cardiff. However, this was too busy with dock construction traffic, and the rail line was initially reserved for coal transport. It was the new rail line from Cogan that brought day-trippers to Barry again. In 1896 the railway was extended to Barry Island Station. Never formally lifted, Lord Windsor’s ban was now ignored!

A half-penny promenade was constructed during the Edwardian era. At Friar’s Point there was a bathing pool for women with bathing huts just above. Men’s bathing facilities were at the opposite end at Nell’s Point, close to today’s colourful beach huts.

A steady flow of visitors becomes a torrent!

However, it took a long while before Barry Island was developed as the resort we see today. Lord Windsor blocked significant development, only making small concessions to improving basic amenities. But by the 1910s and 1920s major developments included Whitmore Bay’s impressive sea wall and promenade. Also the scenic railway roller coaster that laid the ground for the funfair, the ‘Wall of Death’ and other attractions. The Western and Eastern Shelters, built in Classical style, date from this period and initially offered shelter and changing facilities for bathers.

The resort boomed, and by 1934 the fairground is said to have had in excess of 400,000 visitors during the August Bank Holiday week. In 1938, just one Bank Holiday Monday saw an astonishing 250,000 visitors.

The postcard below shows how the Western Shelter was originally built; the staircase leading directly down to the beach was added later.

Butlin’s

With the exception of the war years, the resort continued to grow. Butlin’s Barry Island opened in 1966 heralding thirty years of long-staying revellers. The camp had 800 chalets, and contained all the usual Butlin’s activities – chairlifts, Pig and Whistle Showbar, arcades of shops, large swimming pool and tennis courts. It became ‘The Barry Island Resort’ in the late 1980s after Butlin’s sold the camp to Majestic Holidays. The camp closed in 1996.

For more information about the history of Barry Islands see:

The unknown history of Barry Island | University of South Wales