Squires Gate Holiday Camp & Pontins Blackpool

Squires Gate Holiday Camp

Squires Gate started life as the brainchild of Robert Herbert Pye when he opened a 39-acre camping site in 1933. In 1938 it became a proper holiday camp and over 700 wooden chalets were built along with a ballroom, dining room, putting green and tennis courts. The total expenditure on land, buildings and facilities had reached £93,000 by this time but the camp was generating nearly £13,000 a year in profits.

The layout of the site was designed by town planner Prentice Mawson and the buildings were designed by Andrew Mazzei. Pye had previously spent several years living in California so a lot of the buildings had a west coast American/Spanish design.

The original dining hall could only accommodate 500 guests so most of the chalets were rented out to those who were providing their own food. The remaining guests were staying on a full board basis.

In March 1939 the company went public with the aim of raising £150,000 to pay off loans and to improve the camp with a new dining hall and recreation room (£24,000), a heated 100ft x 40ft outdoor swimming pool (£8,500), a new admin building (£2,000), new toilets (£2,000) along with improvements to the chalets, playing fields, and internal road network. Harold Worden was appointed Chairman

The share issue was a success and in July of that year the new dining hall and swimming pool were opened by Lord Derby. Squires Gate railway station was next door and the camp had its own entrance directly to the platforms.

During the war it was taken over by the Admiralty and used as an infantry training centre and renamed HMS Prithibian. It reopened again in June 1946.

In 1950 the camp hit the national headlines after sending out advertising posters featuring a life-size photo of a girl wearing a bikini, with the words “All this – and Blackpool too”. Complaints poured in and a Glasgow bill-posting company refused to put them up. The British Poster Advertising Association said that “possible implications might be read into the combination of words and illustration”. The camp pledged to paste over the wording on all 5,000 posters.

Pontins Blackpool holiday camp

In June 1961 Fred Pontin launched a bid for the camp, offering 2 Pontins shares for every 3 Squires Gate shares. The news came as a surprise to Squires Gate chairman Frank Hawtin who recommended that shareholders reject the bid as it didn’t take into full account the asset value of the camp. Pontin came back with a better offer – 3 Pontins shares for every 4 Squires Gate shares, the equivalent of £232,000 (about £6.5 million today). The chairman then recommended selling as the Squries Gate shares would effectively double in value. Pontin later remarked it was the best investment he’d ever made. 

Pontin wasted no time and soon built a new entrance plaza along with new brick chalets and a larger ballroom. In July 1962 eviction notices were handed to 60 static caravan owners who had been set up on the edge of the camp for many years. They were given 7 days notice to quit but they weren’t planning to leave without a fight and lawyers got involved and they were still there several months later. 

Most of the new chalets were arranged in single-story buildings but two-storey blocks were built facing the beach to try and stop the sand from blowing in. The original 1939 Squires Gate entertainment building and swimming pool were both retained and the pool was enclosed inside a building. In 1969 a new 1,600 seat theatre was opened at a cost of £100,000.

It continued to operate as a full board site so all meals were included and were taken in the huge communal dining room. The 859 chalets were motel-style, basically just a bedroom and bathroom. In 1972 a week in August cost £18.50 per person which had risen to £84 by 1982.

In 1968 Pontins applied to build another camp in Blackpool on a 40-acre site in Marton Mere. Unlike the existing camp, the new one would have been entirely self-catering giving guests the option of two different sites. It was strongly opposed by Blackpool hoteliers and the idea was later dropped. In 1972 local businessman Bill Harrison built a caravan park on the site which he later sold to Haven and is still open today as a Haven park.

The Pontins camp was located at the end of the runway at Blackpool Airport and in June 1972 the inevitable happened when a small Hansa jet plane overshot and smashed into the camp destroying 10 chalets and creating a huge fireball. Miraculously nobody on the ground was injured as everyone was in the dining hall having dinner. But 7 people on the plane sadly lost their lives.

In the early-1980s a new reception building was constructed along with a sports and recreation hall. By this time the camp could accommodate 2,500 people.

Unfortunately no other major investment took place and by the 2000s the camp, although still popular, was looking very rundown. In common with other Pontin camps speculation was rife that it was all just a deliberate attempt at justifying closure so the land could be sold for more lucrative housing. 

The closure was announced in September 2009 with the loss of 70 full time jobs. In May 2010 planning permission was granted to build 275 residential units on 22 acres of the site. The property developers were the Northern Trust, a company operated by former Pontins owner Trevor Hemmings. Less than a year after closure most of the site had been cleared. Where was the camp located? Search out Ashworth Road or Stubblefield Drive.

The following year planning approval was given to build a second phase of 73 houses. A wide expanse of grass exists bewteen both phases, which happens to line up perfectly with the nearby runway – probably a wise move considering what happened in the past!

We’d love to hear your stories and memories of the camp. Please feel free to leave a comment below.