Heysham Tower was built as a 15-bedroom manor house around 1840 and in its later years was home to Alderman Bennett who died in 1885. The 14-acre estate was sold to the Midland Railway in 1896 for conversion into a hotel. This coincided with the opening of their new railway line being built between Lancaster and Heysham to connect with the Northen Ireland steam ships. The line opened in 1904 and was electrified four years later with overhead gantries, making it the first railway in the country to do so.
The hotel was put up for sale in 1921 and reopened as a holiday camp in May 1925. Rooms were available in the mansion or in “bungalows” and tents within the wooded grounds. It was geared towards young single people and was advertised as the “most popular mixed holiday centre in the country” with men in the tents and girls in the mansion or bungalows.
However “Within a month of its opening. the local police station was visited a score of times at night by frightened girls who asked for sanctuary. They had arrived at the camp for a holiday and found that the chalets used by men and women were not separated. Their cubicles were continually invaded by drunken men. There was no attempt by the camp authorities at control, no organisation proper to a well-conducted camp. The bar was the key point of this camp. In that same first month there were six arrests in the village of drunk and disorderly men campers who had emerged after midnight and made the life of the village hideous with howling vocal choruses and drunken brawls.“
The tents were fitted with 3 beds, wooden floors and electric lighting. The camp was full board with all meals included and these were taken in the communal dining hall which could accommodate 300 people in one sitting.
In 1935 it was taken over by chartered accountant Bertram Holden who sorted out the problems and set about upgrading the site with new chalets. It started appealing more towards the family market and began advertising “no tents or shacks”.
During the war it was used as an Officer Cadet Training Unit.
The camp reopened in June 1946 as “the only holiday camp in Morecambe”. Mr Holden died in 1953 and the camp was taken over by his 22-year old son Derek. It was later expanded to accommodate 600 people
In 1972 Mr Holden applied for permission to turn the site into a caravan park but the plans were rejected after local opposition. It abruptly closed at the end of that year with staff saying that no reason had been given for the closure. The camp employed around a dozen full time staff with another 80 seasonal workers. The manager of the local employment exchange said “they could never get enough workers anyway so it wouldn’t be a big blow”.
In January 1973 it was sold to Leonard Frankland Ltd with the new owners saying they hadn’t made up their mind what to do with the site “we may convert it into a hotel, luxury flats or even knock it down for housing”. Later that month they held a huge auction to sell off the camp contents. In August 1975 outline planning permission was granted for 24 blocks of 3-storey flats with a total of 144 units. The camp was demolished.
Where was it located exactly? It was on the west side of Middleton Rd where Heysham Rd and School Rd intersect. The new roads now occupying the site are Heysham Park and Heysham Hall Grove.
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