In the grounds of the former Cunningham’s Holiday Camp – Victoria Road

February 3, 2013

This lovely building of which little is known about stands in memory of the young men of HMS St. George who trained at Cunningham’s Holiday Camp (and Ballakermeen School) and who gave their lives during the Second World War 1939 – 1945

Please feel free to enlighten us with any information that you may have of this lovely little building.

The image was captured on my Nikon S8200 Camera resized and cropped in Adobe Photoshop CS6.

Feel free to make any comments either on this website by clicking on the “Write comment” below or by logging onto my Facebook Page – Click on the image for a larger view.

Douglas

9 thoughts on “In the grounds of the former Cunningham’s Holiday Camp – Victoria Road”

David Carter says:

February 3, 2013 at 13:20

Manx families were encouraged to invite cadets home for Sunday tea. My mother says everyone was terribly upset when the St George was sunk.

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1. Dave Martin says:
  
  March 17, 2018 at 19:16
  
  David – HMS St. George may have sunk metaphorically – but not in the oggin. HMS St George was the name of the ‘stone frigate’ training base on the Island, whose new-entries were billeted in the holiday camp.
  
  Reply
Peter Killey says:

February 3, 2013 at 13:25

Thanks David, obviously loads of history surrounding this place..

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Peter Killey says:

February 3, 2013 at 20:32

David here is some further information which hopefully can assist with the history of this building!

“This ‘castle’ was built in 1907 by the Cunninghams, and was actually a cleverly disguised toilet block! Commonly known as the look-out tower, for some years between the wars it had a seachlight on top, which the campers used to train on the courting couples on the beach!”

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Barry Howard says:

November 25, 2014 at 20:24

Barry Howard :
This building is a toilet block and was built for Cunninghams camp which at the time was men only, the stairs and door in the centre lead to a wash and bathing area and the steps down to the left of the door led down to the toilets.About two hundred yards to the left of this building through some bushes can be found the remains of the chair lift that led from the bottom of little Switzerland up to the level of the campsite.
I have traveled on the chair lift many times when I stayed at the camp in the early sixties. There are some of the seats from the chair lift in the small museum next to the kipper factory in Peel

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1. Peter Killey says:
  
  November 25, 2014 at 20:29
  
  Cheers Barry
  
  Fantastic information
  
  Reply
Veronica St George-Yorke says:

September 30, 2018 at 15:55

Stayed here many times with my mum and dad my memories are of the palm house going with my dad in a morning for the tea tray to take back to the chalet .reg the swimming instructer who gave me lessons but i could do the actions on the side but afraid to go in the pool .the escalter down to switzerland rd to the frontage and back up again plus the castle type entrance wish we could go around the place again happy days of the late 50s early 60s .

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Diane Lee says:

June 3, 2019 at 21:57

I went to this camp in the early to mid 70’s when it was just a large white building with chalets. Down the main road there was a cliff elevator down to the prom, but as my mother didn’t like it we would turn right out of the camp and just down the road found a path through a picturesque tree-lined path (some kind of glen?) which took you down to the main road close to summerland. Loved it there. And being a dart player I’ve been to the darts competitions quite a few times as well.

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andrew gardner says:

July 25, 2019 at 16:53

i went to this camp in aug 1978 with my mum and dad i was 13 remember walking to play golf on the pitch and putt at nobles park no longer there great memories of isle of man

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