Beach Huts and Cafe

Reasons for Designation

The beach huts and café at Scarborough are designated for listing at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* the huts are examples of the first chalet style of terraced beach huts in England which contribute to the development of the building type * the huts and cafe survive well and are relatively unaltered * They have architectural interest both in their overall design and setting, and in the individual elaboration of the elements * They are intact with original plans and interior features * Although modest, they capture the spirit of the Edwardian seaside in the worlds first seaside resort * The beach huts compare well with the only other listed example in England

Details

SCARBOROUGH

782/0/10033 SOUTH CLIFF 28-APR-08 BEACH HUTS AND CAFE

II Beach huts and café, early C20 with minor later C20 alterations. Constructed of timber boards, with timber verandas, orange roof tiles and glazed panels.

PLAN: The beach huts and café are situated within South Cliff gardens, a public park to the south of Scarborough overlooking the sea. The café is situated upon a level upper terrace within a stone walled enclosure, and a stone stair with balustrades and interval piers with ball finials leads down the cliffside to the beach. The huts comprise two groups of 11 single cell beach huts, or changing rooms arranged on terraces set either side of the stone stairs immediately below the café. There are further rows of 6, 2 and 3 huts to the south.

EXTERIOR: Beach Huts: the terraces of huts are constructed of overlapping timber boards, with original French doors, now with applied panels, painted in primary colours. All have white painted open latticework timber verandas. Roofs are hipped or pitched with orange tile and prominent sprockets; the most northerly two rows have modern replacement roof covering and projecting end bays with canted bay windows to their gable ends.

Café: projecting central section of 3 bays with a hipped roof; this is surmounted by a square clock tower with four faces and pyramidal roof bearing an ornate weather vane. Central projecting entrance bay has a dentilled segmental pediment carried on an entablature; below there are glazed French doors flanked by glazed windows. To either side of the 3 bay central section there are single storey ranges each of 3 bays formed by a wooden blind arcade of open latticework mirroring that of the beach huts; the first bay of each range contains glazed French doors with others having large glazed windows. The ends of each range are canted and formed of glazed windows. The building has prominent sprockets again mirroring those of the beach huts.

INTERIOR: Beach Huts: very simple construction clad in tongue and groove timber, painted with dado rails. The floors are boarded and huts have double full height corner cupboards and small folding tables.

Cafe: the original plan form is retained and the central room has original wooden panelling with a delft rack and original coat hooks. Above the higher central section, access is gained to the clock tower, with original working clock, from a small loft.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: stone steps flanked by balustrades with interval square piers, coping tones and ball finials.

HISTORY: Permanent bathing bungalows or beach huts first appeared in Britain in c.1910 in Bournemouth, but the idea of creating a series of cells in a permanent row was pioneered in Scarborough at its North Bay in 1911 followed on closely by these examples at South Cliff in 1911-12. Scarborough was the world's first seaside resort; it was essentially where the seaside was invented. By 1735 it had an early form of bathing machine, the wheeled precursor of beach huts, and continued to be a pioneer in all things seaside and many of the innovations begun there were copied elsewhere around the country. The building of such beach huts at seaside resorts was considered quite a desirable attraction, and formed an important element in the creation of the seaside resort in the early C20. Beach huts represent a fundamental change from the wheeled bathing machines previously used where people changed in private and modestly lowered themselves into the sea almost unseen. The concept of beach huts reflects changing ideas about social decorum: getting changed for bathing in a hut at the top of the beach and walking to the sea in full view was a rather liberated activity.

South Cliff, Scarborough began to be developed as a select resort by the mid C19 with the construction of The Crown Hotel and the Esplanade in 1845. A new wave of development came in the years between 1864 and 1880 with South Cliff baths, a tramway, a new Spa Hall and grand terraces. The beach huts and cafe were clearly part of the overall scheme to improve visitor facilities in this part of the South Bay during the early years of the C20, close to the beach area known as 'children's corner'. South Cliff gardens were laid out from c. 1910 and included an Italian garden in 1912. In 1914 construction began on the South Bay Bathing Pool, which was also pioneering as one of the country's first tidally filled lidos and further additions took place in the 1930s.

SOURCES: P Williams 'The English Seaside' 2005, English Heritage, p81 A Brodie and G Winter 'England's Seaside Resorts' 2007, English Heritage K Ferry 'Sheds on the Seashore: from bathing machines to beach huts' forthcoming.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION DECISION The beach huts and café at Scarborough are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* the huts are examples of the first chalet style of terraced beach huts in England which contribute to the development of the building type * the huts and cafe survive well and are relatively unaltered * They have architectural interest both in their overall design and setting, and in the individual elaboration of the elements * They are intact with original plans and interior features * Although modest, they capture the spirit of the Edwardian seaside in the worlds first seaside resort * The beach huts compare well with the only other listed example in England

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

504422

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Ferry, K, Sheds on the Seashore: From Bathing machines to beach huts, (2008)
Williams, P, The English Seaside, (2005), 81
Brodie, A, Winter, G, England’s Seaside Resorts, (2007)

End of official list entry

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