Towyn, Denbighshire: the heart of Trailer Park country
Created | Updated Sep 1, 2005
I know Tywyn!
Not to be confused with "Towyn", btw, which is a different part of the North Wales coast.
Note for Americans: we're aware you have things called "trailer parks", which are associated with people who are down on their luck, down at heel, somewhat "seedy", with a reputation for being last-chance housing for the poor, mad, sad, bad, and plain unlucky.
What would you say about a culture where people, of their own free will, go out and spend their annual vacation living in a trailer park?
This happens in Britain.
Large tracts of North Wales, especially on the Flintshire and Denbighshire coasts, are given over to static caravans which are rented out on short lets to people wanting a cheap holiday. Historically, all this sprang up shortly after WW2, where all people might be able to afford (with restrictions on overseas travel, restrictions on the amount of currency you could take out of Britain, and the sheer cost of getting there)might be a fortnight in North Wales in the cheapest possible accomodation.
Travelling down the old coast road, for something like twenty miles, all you will see are fields of static trailers. (It's a rich cash crop for the farmers who own the land!)
The heyday for this sort of holidaying was the 1960's and early 1970's.
With rising affluence and cheap air fares allowing most folk to go abroad, the Denbighshire coast has faded as a holiday resort.
Today, Rhyl is the Last Resort (as are Towyn, Abergele and Prestatyn) for those too poor and indigent to be able to afford anywhere else: Britain's equivalent of "Trailer trash" from council estates (Housing Projects) in Liverpool and Manchester.
The seafront at Rhyl, once proudly kept, once a line of immpeccable and always full guesthouses, is now pockmarked with decay and collapsing properties. Never an upmarket resort, Rhyl is hanging, grimly, in there, but only just, fed by the Trailer Estates and the cheap holidays of the poorest.
And the heart of trailer country is the village of Towyn - as far removed from Tywyn as you can get while being in the same country.....
Not to be confused with "Towyn", btw, which is a different part of the North Wales coast.
Note for Americans: we're aware you have things called "trailer parks", which are associated with people who are down on their luck, down at heel, somewhat "seedy", with a reputation for being last-chance housing for the poor, mad, sad, bad, and plain unlucky.
What would you say about a culture where people, of their own free will, go out and spend their annual vacation living in a trailer park?
This happens in Britain.
Large tracts of North Wales, especially on the Flintshire and Denbighshire coasts, are given over to static caravans which are rented out on short lets to people wanting a cheap holiday. Historically, all this sprang up shortly after WW2, where all people might be able to afford (with restrictions on overseas travel, restrictions on the amount of currency you could take out of Britain, and the sheer cost of getting there)might be a fortnight in North Wales in the cheapest possible accomodation.
Travelling down the old coast road, for something like twenty miles, all you will see are fields of static trailers. (It's a rich cash crop for the farmers who own the land!)
The heyday for this sort of holidaying was the 1960's and early 1970's.
With rising affluence and cheap air fares allowing most folk to go abroad, the Denbighshire coast has faded as a holiday resort.
Today, Rhyl is the Last Resort (as are Towyn, Abergele and Prestatyn) for those too poor and indigent to be able to afford anywhere else: Britain's equivalent of "Trailer trash" from council estates (Housing Projects) in Liverpool and Manchester.
The seafront at Rhyl, once proudly kept, once a line of immpeccable and always full guesthouses, is now pockmarked with decay and collapsing properties. Never an upmarket resort, Rhyl is hanging, grimly, in there, but only just, fed by the Trailer Estates and the cheap holidays of the poorest.
And the heart of trailer country is the village of Towyn - as far removed from Tywyn as you can get while being in the same country.....
