
Once upon a time, my great-uncle Joe had a beach bungalow at Coulderton near St. Bees, where I spent some very happy hours in the 1960s. Amazingly, it's still there, more-or-less, in 2007, along with a great many others- many of which these days are substantial brick structures, most unlike the quaint mixture of timber bungalows and old railway carriages I remember.
For the past few years, I have been gathering information on the bungalows of Lowside Quarter (Coulderton, Nethertown and Braystones, plus a few technically over the border in St. Bees). The ultimate intention is to make all of it (including images of original architects' drawings, and pictures loaned to me by fellow enthusiasts) available on computer for customers at the Whitehaven Record Office and Local Studies Library, but as they don't yet have computers available there for the public to use, I am just putting some basics online:
Images of the bungalows, 2004-6 (you may need broadband for this!)
List of ratepayers etc., 1920s to 1940s
List of planning permission files held at Whitehaven Record Office
Relevant items from local council minutes, 1930s to 1970s
Relevant items from newspapers (a rather random selection)
Newspaper stories of beach/surf rescues
Miscellaneous information, from a variety of sources
Map of the shore area in 1838, from the Tithe Award
Information in rough north-south geographical order:
Tomlin View, Coulderton, in the 1960s
Sea Crest, Coulderton and the Pickthalls
Plessington, Nethertown, the Henrys- and Dr Cardwell
Holidays at Tresco, Braystones, by Helen Strickland
Braystones north end, pictures from the Banister album
Braystones and Nethertown in the Perriman family collections
The Perriman (extended) family at Braystones
Braystones bungalows, pictures from the Henson collection
Braystones bungalows, pictures from the Irving collection
Generations on the beach, by Connie Irving
The beginnings of Snafell, Braystones, 1923
'Waverley' and the Grahams
Memories by Susan Graham (née Labourne)
More from the Grahams, and Jimmy Ousby
Some unexpected visitors to Braystones
Latona, Braystones, 1936-45, by Tom Dalzell
Latona again (and more) by Miles Gaythwaite
Latona (etc.) again, by Judith Yates (née Barclay)
Latona in its early days, by Joseph Gaythwaite
The James family, The Kabin and The Cabin
The Allen family at Seabank
Northolme, Braystones, by Dot Walker
Bitten by the beach bug- Stuart Flett
Sunnymede etc. from Bennie's album
The 1977 railway smash
The big sewer under the railway by 'Belvedere'
I hope to add more pages about other individual bungalows in the near future, based on other people's pictures and memories. Also, if you feel inspired to create your own beach bungalow web page, I'd love to link to it.
Also here's the first of the promised pages about Nethertown Camp:
The opening of the Tow Bar Inn, 1963