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I found an invoice among several documents in a drawer recently at home.
The Strand Hotel, Portstewart, County Londonderry, was located at the end of the road where the resort's famous strand beach is.
It was established in 1932.
When did the hotel close its doors for the last time?
The Director in 1958 was Mrs A L S McGrath.
Golf, tennis and fishing were as popular as they remain today.
Notably the invoice contains columns for:-
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| Strand Hotel: prospect from the golf links |
The Director in 1958 was Mrs A L S McGrath.
Golf, tennis and fishing were as popular as they remain today.
Notably the invoice contains columns for:-
- Servants' Board
- Morning Tea
- Baths
- Fires
- High Tea
- Supper
- Phone & [Tele]grams
For quite a few years in the 1960s our extended family used to rent a house for the month of August in Burnside, Portstewart. We used to walk past the Strand hotel most days to and from the strand.I can still remember the different smells coming from the kitchens at breakfast, lunch and dinner times. My father talked of earlier times when business people and commercial travellers used to tour the towns of N Ireland. They all knew each other and the Strand Hotel was one of the great meeting points. After dinner and a few drinks everyone had to do their party piece, a song or recitation. My father's was the one that begins 'Come all ye dry land sailiors and listen to me song, it's only forty verses so it won't detain youse long'. I can still remember most of it and I particularly liked 'and passing through the Gas Works straight, a very dangerous part, we ran by onto a lump of coal that wasn't marked down in the chart'. Happy memories.
ReplyDeletePhil, your dad was singing the well known ballad, 'The cruise of the Calabar' which was sailing from Belfast to Portadown…
ReplyDelete+
A place my late wife worked at during 1980s and remembered with great fondness.
ReplyDeleteKathy Fitzgerald
Tim,
ReplyDeleteI have great memories of going to The Strand in the late 1970s/early 80s, when it was our regular haunt of a Saturday night. Of course that was the heyday of disco, and there were no fewer than three separate dance floors - the most popular was the Cellar, which was accessed by an always-packed-with-people narrow staircase (not so much H&S or fire regulations in those days I suppose). Then there was the upstairs disco frequented mostly by the young farmers, and another, more upmarket area at the other side of the hotel which seemed to us to be for a much older crowd ("older" to us then being people in their 30s). :/
Admission was £2, with a letter stamped on the back of the hand which was then widely copied using felt tip pens or eyeliner (and that wasn't just the girls - this was also the age of the New Romantics, don't forget).
As well as the discos they would have live music, and anyone who socialised on the North Coast in those days will have danced to Cuddles, or Plug Torrens and Dominic, legends in their own lifetimes. Of course there were other great venues, not least Kellys nightclub in Portrush and Spuds for live music in Portstewart, but The Strand will always hold a particular place in the affections of many, remembering that all this was happening at the height of "the Troubles", when any sort of apparent normality was welcome.
Not a comment on architecture or historical family lineages this time I'm afraid, Tim, just a fond memory of part of our more recent social history!
Stroan Ranger
Stroan Ranger,
ReplyDeleteThanks so much once agin for a brilliant anecdote. I don't suppose you recall the year they closed down? Early 90s perhaps. Tim.
Tim,
ReplyDeleteI think it must have been 1989 or 1990 when it closed. It was subsequently demolished for re-development, but the site then lay half-finished for years, until the local Council put a complete or demolish order on it in 2013.
Another little nugget relating to the Strand's history - Jack Fawcett, who bought the hotel in partnership in 1963, also owned the old Northern Counties Hotel in Portrush. It had started out life as The Antrim Arms, and when the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway purchased a share in it in the 1880s it was renamed. The newly-named hotel was improved by John Lanyon in the late 1800s and by Berkeley Deane Wise in the early 1900s (Wise was chief architect to the railway company and his designs included the red brick and mock Tudor-style railway stations we see in Northern Ireland, the Portrush railway station being a fine example). Those of us of a certain vintage will recall the big revolving entrance door of the Counties and the timber-panelled sitting room, where the two enormous resident Irish wolfhounds were usually to be found sprawled asleep and snoring in front of a roaring fire. On warmer days they would invariably be found lying at the revolving door so that guests had to clamber over them on their way in or out. The dogs were big genial creatures, and didn't seem at all put out by people interrupting their snoozing.
Both The Strand and the Northern Counties were the venues for many years for weddings, dinners and dances. The Counties had an ornate grand ballroom on the first floor, where I recall taking dance classes (I can still produce a fair quickstep when the occasion demands, though unfortunately it is rather creakier these days) and a heated pool (up on the second floor I think?) where I learned to swim. Sadly the old hotel was destroyed by fire in 1990. The modern hotel now standing on the site makes a pleasant place for coffee.
Stroan Ranger