Let's Have A Day Out - To Rhyl

With miles upon miles of golden sandy beaches, North Wales has been a popular caravan holiday preference for many looking for a fun-filled family seaside holiday. Most come to this area to visit Talacre and Gronant down to Towyn and Abergele where we find numerous Holiday Caravan Parks. These came into their own after the war, when a new era of camping began. This new type of accommodation, the caravan, became established in the early 1950s with such household names as Willerby and Bluebird leading the way in manufacturing 20' long models. However such luxuries as running water and electricity were still a long way off. The static caravan became the ideal way to spend summer breaks by the sea or in the countryside, with many families renting or buying a caravan on a site - many of which were just fields!

'Sunny Prestatyn' became famous for its beach, clean seas and promenade entertainers, and visiting for a bathe was considered very healthy by city-dwellers, but is now diversifying in response to the decline of the British seaside holiday. It all started in 1925 when Lyons Holiday Park was founded, being the very first holiday park in North Wales, and has grown now into a fun-filled flag ship park, Lyons Robin Hood in Prestatyn. Prestatyn was also the home of the first UK Kwik Save Supermarket in 1965 and was also the home of the firm's business headquarters. Pontin's Holiday Centre here was the location for a 1973 film of the popular British TV series, 'On The Buses'. 

Rhyl promenade June 1952

Situated on the north east coast of Wales in Denbighshire is the seaside town of Rhyl which sits at the mouth of the River Clwyd. This popular coastal resort is one of the biggest towns in North Wales which has seen a significant amount of investment and redevelopment in recent years. To the west is the suburb of Kinmel Bay and the resort of Towyn beyond, to the east Prestatyn and to the south Rhuddlan. Rhyl was once an elegant Victorian resort, popular with affluent day trippers from Liverpool and Manchester, attracted by the clean seaside air and coast. It is best known for its seaside charm, which is no surprise given that its beach and neighbouring promenade stretch the length of the town, roughly two miles from Clwyd Estuary to Splash Point. Memories flood back with the smell of burgers and the sound of the bingo callers from the amusement arcades. The beach itself is sandy with little rocks and when the tide is out the beach lengthens, so much so that you have a half-mile walk from the sea wall to the waves! Along the seafront are plenty of traditional beach shops, while the Carneddau Mountains can also be seen from the beach. The Drift Park joins the seafront to the town centre with its promenade that boasts a waterpark with paddling pool with fountains, playgrounds, miniature golf and an open air theatre.  One of the main landmarks in Rhyl is the Sky Tower which soars 250 feet (90m) above the town on the West Parade, brought from the 1988 Glasgow Garden Festival. This is where you'll also find the Rhyl Children's Village theme park. On the East Parade is the Sea Quarium with its array of aquatic life to explore, while next to it is the Pavillion Theatre which often shows various comedy and contemporary theatre. Another popular attraction is the Marine Lake, which is a 12 hectare reservoir which opened in 1895. The only original attraction from its Victorian past is the Rhyl Miniature Railway which travels around the lake.

The Black Cat Amusement Arcade, Towyn.

Next to Rhyl we have Kinmel Bay which attracts serious watersports enthusiasts as well as paddlers and swimmers and here canoeing and windsurfing are popular. Yachting and fishing fans head for Kinmel Bay's pretty harbour, while landlubbers make for Y Morfa Leisure Centre, which has a multi-purpose sports hall, two squash courts and an outdoor multi-use games area. Next-door is Towyn, a bustling place, with beach-front amusements such as the Black Cat, fine sands and good shopping. Two local attractions bring in the crowds. The Tir Prince Leisure Park offers an unusual combination of American-style harness racing and a big amusement park with lots of rides – plus the largest outdoor weekly market in North Wales. If that's not enough, Knightley's Fun park is a complete amusement centre with everything from costumed characters to a frenetic family funfair. It was in the late 1940s that young Gerald Vose started to produce and sell trailers in North Wales. A few years later he purchased a piece of land in Towyn and began to take tents in the summer months. It was in the 1960s, as the popularity of caravans started to gain momentum, that Abbeyford Caravan Park was created - basic by today's standards, as with many others at the time, it had a toilet block and standpipes for drinking water. The Calor Gas van was a regular visitor to site as this was the only provider of lighting and cooking inside. One of the first larger and most well known caravan parks here to have the 'statutory' club, with entertainment at weekends, is Winkups, which is close to the North Wales Coastal railway line along with other well established parks such as Happy Days, Edwards, Miller's Cottage and Palins.

Rhuddlan was the site of a Welsh cantref and served as the seat of government and capital of Gwynedd for the Welsh king Gruffydd ap Llywelyn from 1007 to 1063, whose family may have been the traditional Welsh lords of Rhuddlan for generations. A mint established at Rhuddlan in the 1180s by Dafydd ab Owain, and later maintained by Llywelyn the Great, was responsible for minting the first native Welsh coinage since the reign of Hywel Dda. The town is best known for the ruins of Rhuddlan Castle built by order of King Edward 1 from 1277 to 1282. The well-preserved castle has a great round tower and many surviving walls. It was built soon after the conquest of Wales and is where Edward I signed the Statute of Rhuddlan, laying down the way by which the Pricipality of Wales created by the princes of Gwynedd was to be governed. Here he presented his baby son to the Welsh nobility as the very first English 'Prince of Wales'.

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