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.
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Manx families were encouraged to invite cadets home for Sunday tea. My mother says everyone was terribly upset when the St George was sunk.
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.
Thanks David, obviously loads of history surrounding this place..
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!”
Cheers Barry
Fantastic information
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 .
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.
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