Holiday camp UK - Lyme Bay (Warners Seaton)

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About Holiday camp UK - Lyme Bay (Warners Seaton)

Memories of the Haven Holidays Lyme Bay Holiday Village and its predecessors Warner's Seaton and Ladbroke's Blue Waters. (Also its last incarnation too before the bulldozers did there worst).

Anyone is welcome to join this group; staff, campers et al.

I was going to write a short history of the camp, but instead the response I received from English Heritage refusing listing seems to cover everything :

"The former Warners Holiday Camp is sited to the east of the town adjacent to the train station. It apparently predates the first Butlins by 6 months, being constructed in 1936 with Mr Butlin being a member of the board.

It originally comprised a series of chalets arranged in two rows extending north from the ballroom/dining hall building, as depicted on the 1939 Ordnance Survey map. A postcard of the site c.1940 shows a series of timber-built, weatherboarded chalets, each with a pitched roof extending forward over a front veranda. Further chalets and central buildings were constructed to the north and west of this after WWII, and the original chalets were replaced. The western, later, part of the camp was closed in 2000.

The extant buildings comprise: an indoor swimming pool which looks to be of c.1990s date, constructed of corrugated metal over a curved frame; chalets of probable c.1970s (east side of site) constructed of brick with pitched, concrete tile roofs; chalets of probable c.1970s (west side of site), clad in timber weatherboarding with flat roofs, now derelict; an entertainment building (west side of site) c. 1970s constructed of concrete with flat roof and metal-framed windows, also derelict.

Finally, the original ballroom building appears to have been rebuilt, or at the very least significantly extended and re-clad. This large building is concrete rendered with a corrugated metal roof. The rear elevation (north) is similarly clad to the swimming pool. The front elevation has a series of four small projecting gabled ranges housing cafes. Photographs of the interior of this main building do not show any features of interest; the bar and fittings all appear to date from the late-C20. From what can be ascertained from the information there is no evidence that any of the original 1930s buildings remain.

The Revision to the Principles of Selection for listing buildings (CLG circular 01/2007 state that 'after 1840, because of the greatly increased number of buildings erected and the much larger numbers that have survived, progressively greater selection is necessary'. Furthermore, particular rigour needs to be applied to inter- and post-war buildings and only those that possess definite architectural quality and intactness, especially internally, will be recommended for inclusion on the list. Beach huts, chalets and holiday camps are rarely designated but, if early and complete, may deserve consideration for their social history value. The buildings remaining at Lyme Bay Holiday Village are neither of early date nor complete. There are extremely plain in appearance and standard in design and very little, if anything, remains of the 1930s' camp.

Historically, the camp maybe fairly early and just predates Butlins, but it is not the earliest camp; for example, the Warner Camp at Hayling Island was built in 1931, therefore, the former Warners Holiday Camp, (Lyme Bay Holiday Village) in Seaton is not of sufficient special architectural or historic interest to merit inclusion on the list."

Just as an aside the so called 'west side' of the camp was a later separate camp called Blue Waters which came under the ownership of Ladbrokes holidays in the 1970s. As far as I can tell the Ladbrokes camps became what we know as Haven and in the early 1990s Haven and Warner came under the common ownership of Rank hence one big camp was created - the so called "Lyme Bay Holiday Village". By 1999 the camp was deemed to be outside the criterior set by Rank to be a Haven Holiday 'Park' and sold off, part of a cull of parks that continued after Rank sold Haven to Born Leisure.

Just for interests sake, the 2010 Haven brochure lists 35 sites, whereas the 2000 brochure has 56 camps (which even by then had lost at least Lyme Bay, Harcourt Sands, Mill Rythe and Duporth) but only 18 parks from the 2000's 56 are still Haven sites this year!

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