Butlin's Bognor Regis is a
holiday camp
A holiday camp is a type of holiday accommodation that encourages holidaymakers to stay within the site boundary, and provides entertainment and facilities for them throughout the day. Since the 1970s, the term has fallen out of favour with term ...
in the
seaside resort
A seaside resort is a resort town, town, village, or hotel that serves as a Resort, vacation resort and is located on a coast. Sometimes the concept includes an aspect of official accreditation based on the satisfaction of certain requirements, suc ...
of
Bognor Regis
Bognor Regis (), sometimes simply known as Bognor (), is a town and seaside resort in West Sussex on the south coast of England, south-west of London, west of Brighton, south-east of Chichester and east of Portsmouth. Other nearby towns ...
, West Sussex, England. It lies south southwest of
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
. Butlin's presence in the town began in 1932 with the opening of an amusement park; their operation soon expanded to take in a zoo as well. In 1960, Billy Butlin opened his first post-war mainland holiday camp, moving both the amusement park and zoo into the new camp. The camp survived a series of cuts in the early 1980s, attracting further investment and again in the late 1990s when it was retained as one of only three camps still bearing the Butlin name. The camp has since seen a raft of new construction as the company moves from chalet towards hotel-based accommodation.
Butlin history
In 1914,
Billy Butlin
Sir William Heygate Edmund Colborne Butlin (29 September 189912 June 1980) was a South African-born British entrepreneur whose name is synonymous with the British holiday camp.''#refRiverside, American Heritage Dictionary 2004'', p. 135.#refSc ...
was living in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
with his mother and stepfather, when he left school and went to work for
Eatons
The T. Eaton Company Limited, later known as Eaton's, was a Canadian department store chain that was once the largest in the country. It was founded in 1869 in Toronto by Timothy Eaton, an immigrant from what is now Northern Ireland. Eaton's grew ...
department store
A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...
. One of the best aspects of working for the company was that he was able to visit their
summer camp
A summer camp or sleepaway camp is a supervised program for children conducted during the summer months in some countries. Children and adolescents who attend summer camp are known as ''campers''. Summer school is usually a part of the academ ...
, which gave him his first taste of a real holiday, indeed a taste of what was to become a very big part of his life.
The onset of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
led to his leaving Eatons and enlisting in the
Canadian Expeditionary Force
The Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) was the expeditionary field force of Canada during the First World War. It was formed following Britain’s declaration of war on Germany on 15 August 1914, with an initial strength of one infantry division ...
serving in Europe, but seeing little if any action.
[ Dacre 1982, pp. 43–45] After the war, Butlin made his way back to England, where he used his last £5 (2011:£) to purchase a stall in his uncle
Marshall Hill
Marshall may refer to:
Places
Australia
* Marshall, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria
Canada
* Marshall, Saskatchewan
* The Marshall, a mountain in British Columbia
Liberia
* Marshall, Liberia
Marshall Islands
* Marshall Islands, an ...
's travelling fair.
As a showman, Butlin quickly became successful, one stall became several, and several became his own travelling fair.
[ Dacre 1982, p. 72] Butlin soon had fixed sites as well as his travelling fair – the first was
Olympia
The name Olympia may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film
* ''Olympia'' (1938 film), by Leni Riefenstahl, documenting the Berlin-hosted Olympic Games
* ''Olympia'' (1998 film), about a Mexican soap opera star who pursues a career as an athlet ...
in London outside
Bertram Mills
Bertram Wagstaff Mills (August 1873 – 16 April 1938) was a British circus owner originally from Paddington, London, who ran the Bertram Mills Circus. His circus became famous in the UK for its Christmas shows at Olympia in West London televised ...
' Circus. In 1925, he opened a set of Stalls in
Barry Island
Barry Island ( cy, Ynys y Barri) is a district, peninsula and seaside resort, forming part of the town of Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan, South Wales. It is named after the 6th century Saint Baruc. Barry's stretch of coast, on the Bristol Chan ...
,
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
, where he observed the way landladies in
seaside resorts
A seaside resort is a town, village, or hotel that serves as a vacation resort and is located on a coast. Sometimes the concept includes an aspect of official accreditation based on the satisfaction of certain requirements, such as in the German ' ...
would (sometimes literally) push families out of the lodgings between meals, and began to nurture the idea of a holiday camp similar to that he had attended whilst an employee at Eatons.
In 1927, Butlin leased a piece of land from the
Earl of Scarbrough
Earl of Scarbrough is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1690 for Richard Lumley, 2nd Viscount Lumley. He is best remembered as one of the Immortal Seven who invited William of Orange to invade England and depose his father- ...
by the seaside town of
Skegness
Skegness ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the East Lindsey District of Lincolnshire, England. On the Lincolnshire coast of the North Sea, the town is east of Lincoln and north-east of Boston. With a population of 19,579 as of 2011, i ...
, where he set up an amusement park with hoopla stalls, a tower slide, a haunted house ride, and an atmospheric railway.
[ Scott 2001, p. 11]
Butlin's in Bognor
![Recreation shelter](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Recreation_shelter.jpg)
In 1932, Butlin saw an opportunity to create a similar amusement park in Bognor Regis to the one he had in Skegness. Butlin purchased land on the corner of Lennox Street and the Esplanade, which had previously been the Olympian Gardens.
Butlin constructed his amusement park on the land and called it "Butlin's Recreation Shelter".
In 1928, Butlin had secured an exclusive license to sell
Dodgem cars
Bumper cars or dodgems are the generic names for a type of flat amusement ride consisting of multiple small electrically powered cars which draw power from the floor and/or ceiling, and which are turned on and off remotely by an operator. Bumpe ...
in Europe,
[ Scott 2001, p. 6.] and these were one of the first attractions in the shelter along with
one-armed bandits.
The shelter was a popular venue with the local press of the time reporting that patrons could "meet the elite" there.
The following year, Butlin opened a
zoo
A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility in which animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for conservation purposes.
The term ''zoological garden'' refers to zoo ...
on the seafront. It opened on 5 July and contained brown, black and polar bears, hyenas, leopards, pelicans, kangaroos, and monkeys.
The zoo had a snake pit as its star attraction where Togo the snake king would regularly give shows. The site also
For some time, the park in Bognor was run by Butlin's mother Bertha Butlin though she later left to run his park on
Hayling Island
Hayling Island is an island off the south coast of England, in the borough of Havant in the county of Hampshire, east of Portsmouth.
History
An Iron Age shrine in the north of Hayling Island was later developed into a Roman temple in the 1st c ...
.
[ Dacre 1982, pp. 89]
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, the park at Bognor was a cause for concern for Butlin. The park had always had a shooting range and during the late 1930s the targets were replaced with images of
Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...
,
Göring,
Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...
, and
Ribbentrop
Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945.
Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's not ...
. After the
Battle of Dunkirk
The Battle of Dunkirk (french: Bataille de Dunkerque, link=no) was fought around the French port of Dunkirk (Dunkerque) during the Second World War, between the Allies and Nazi Germany. As the Allies were losing the Battle of France on t ...
, Butlin became concerned that should the Germans invade the south coast, the first thing they might see was the gallery, making Butlin into a target.
[ Dacre 1982, pp. 130]
Butlin's Holiday Camp
In late 1959, Butlin was looking to open another camp in the town and reached a deal with Bognor Regis town council to purchase a site at the east end of the promenade. The agreement was met with local opposition (as some of his previous camps had), so Butlin ran an advert in the local press advising that he would remove his "unsightly" fun fairs from the middle of promenade, if he was allowed to move them to his new site. Further to this, he commented that he would be willing to spend more on advertising the town than any of the local hoteliers had.
Many local residents disliked the new camp, despite Butlin having created some 500 local jobs during the construction period. There were complaints that the site bore a resemblance to a prison, and that the town would have been better off if the site had been used for new housing.
During construction, one of the works that was required was the straightening of a stream known as the
Aldingbourne Rife which formed a U shape onto the proposed site.
[ Salzman, Hudson 1997, p. 163.] However, due to a particularly wet winter, the river burst its banks and flooded the site, leaving it deep in mud. As well as the poor underfoot conditions, Butlin developed
gout
Gout ( ) is a form of inflammatory arthritis characterized by recurrent attacks of a red, tender, hot and swollen joint, caused by deposition of monosodium urate monohydrate crystals. Pain typically comes on rapidly, reaching maximal intensit ...
, which hindered his mobility.
[ Dacre 1982, p. 204.] Those who worked on the site recalled vehicles becoming stuck due to the conditions, and mattresses in their plastic wrappings being used to form walkways throughout the camp.
![Butlin's Holiday Camp - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Butlin%27s_Holiday_Camp_-_geograph.org.uk_-_529604.jpg)
On 2 July 1960, Billy Butlin opened his new holiday camp at Bognor. The cost of construction was £2.5 million and due to the flooding the camp was not ready on its opening date. Butlin offered his patrons the chance to be re-sited at the Clacton camp instead; however, a number of guests opted to stay and help; those who did received a free bottle of Champagne as a reward. Once opened, the camp accommodated around 5,000 campers and another 5,000-day visitors.
At its peak, the camp saw 6,000 guests moving in every Saturday whilst the last 6,000 left the same day. The camp had 1,300 staff to look after the needs of the guests, including the Redcoats.
[ Löfgren 2002, p. 247.] When the camp opened, all guests were catered on either
full or half board basis; however, in 1968 Butlin handed running of the company to his son Bobby Butlin, who introduced self-catering accommodation as a means to reduce labour costs.
[ Scott 2001, p. 6.]
Butlin's Bognor was refurbished through the 1980s. In 1987, the camp was renamed ''Southcoast World'' following a £16.5 million spend on new and updated
accommodation, the addition of a new indoor water complex and a new
miniature steam railway.
In 1998, as one of Butlin's three remaining locations, Bognor again underwent major refurbishment. The Southcoast World identity was dropped, and £45 million was invested in redevelopment. A ''Skyline Pavilion'' was added to the resort, providing a huge undercover area for year-round, weather-protected facilities. The Skyline Pavilion contained new
shops,
bars,
restaurant
A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearan ...
s and
entertainment
Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousa ...
areas. The refurbishment also included further updates to the chalet accommodation, a redesign for the Redcoat uniform and the provision of a resort
police constable
A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in criminal law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions. A constable is commonly the rank of an officer within the police. Other peop ...
to improve security. The camp was relaunched by pop star
Ronan Keating
Ronan Patrick John Keating (born 3 March 1977) is an Irish singer. He debuted in 1993 alongside Keith Duffy, Michael Graham, Shane Lynch, and Stephen Gately, as the co-lead singer (with Gately) of Irish pop group Boyzone. His solo career start ...
in May 1999.
At the same time, the company dropped its use of the possessive apostrophe, changing from Butlin's to Butlins;
after the refurbishment, the resort was renamed as Butlins Resort Bognor Regis, as it remains.
[ Prideaux 2009, p. 81.]
Butlins Resort Bognor Regis
Today the resort caters for over 385,000 visitors per year with 300,000 being resident and 85,000 visiting for the day.
The resort is one of the largest employers in the Bognor Regis area,
and currently employs 850 staff each year, 35 of which make up the Redcoat team.
Over the years, many of the attractions have been removed.
However the resort still retains a swimming pool and funfair. Today it provides a range of activities such as
rock climbing
Rock climbing is a sport in which participants climb up, across, or down natural rock formations. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a usually pre-defined route without falling. Rock climbing is a physically and ...
,
fencing
Fencing is a group of three related combat sports. The three disciplines in modern fencing are the foil, the épée, and the sabre (also ''saber''); winning points are made through the weapon's contact with an opponent. A fourth discipline, s ...
, and
archery
Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In m ...
. It also provides a wide range of entertainment, aided by the formation of strategic partnerships with popular brands, including
The X Factor
''The X Factor'' is a television music competition franchise created by British producer Simon Cowell and his company Syco Entertainment. It originated in the United Kingdom, where it was devised as a replacement for ''Pop Idol'' (2001–2003 ...
,
Britain's Got Talent
''Britain's Got Talent'' (often abbreviated to ''BGT'') is a televised British talent show competition, and part of the global ''Got Talent'' franchise created by Simon Cowell. Presented by Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly (colloquially ...
,
Thomas & Friends
''Thomas & Friends'' (originally known as ''Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends'' and later ''Thomas & Friends: Big World! Big Adventures!'') is a British children's television series that aired across 24 series from 1984 to 2021. Based on ''The ...
,
Brainiac: Science Abuse,
Guinness World Records
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...
,
Bob the Builder
''Bob the Builder'' is a British animated children's television series created by Keith Chapman for HIT Entertainment and Hot Animation. The series follows the adventures of Bob, a building contractor, specialising in masonry, along with ...
,
Pingu
''Pingu'' is a stop-motion children's television series co-created by Otmar Gutmann and Erika Brueggemann. It was originally produced from 1990 to 2000 by Swiss company The Pygos Group (originally called Trickfilmstudio) for SF DRS in Switzerl ...
and
Angelina Ballerina
''Angelina Ballerina'' is a children's book series by author Katharine Holabird and illustrator Helen Craig about a fictional mouse (full name Angelina Jeanette Mouseling) who is training to become a ballerina. The first book in the series was ...
.
The site is now 60 acres in size, and has been at the forefront of a move towards hotel accommodation by the company. Including the hotels, the camp has 4,800 beds available.
Bognor Hotels
In 2005, further work was undertaken to update the resort with the introduction of the ''Shoreline Hotel''. £10 million was spent on the hotel and its surrounding landscaped gardens. With big
porthole
A porthole, sometimes called bull's-eye window or bull's-eye, is a generally circular window used on the hull of ships to admit light and air. Though the term is of maritime origin, it is also used to describe round windows on armored vehicle ...
windows, and a ship-like
prow
The bow () is the forward part of the hull of a ship or boat, the point that is usually most forward when the vessel is underway. The aft end of the boat is the stern.
Prow may be used as a synonym for bow or it may mean the forward-most part ...
, the four-floor hotel was designed with a slightly nautical feel. The hotel provides 160 rooms of three different grades. in addition to the regular Butlin's facilities. The success of the Shoreline saw another hotel opening in the autumn of 2009. Costing £20 million to construct, the hotel was named the ''Ocean Hotel''. In July 2012, Butlins' latest hotel opened; named the ''Wave Hotel'', it is the first Butlins' hotel to feature self-catering apartments. A further three hotels are being planned as part of Bognor Regis Regeneration.
Influence
The camp was the location for a scene in the film ''
The Beauty Jungle
''The Beauty Jungle'' (also known as Contest Girl) is a 1964 British film directed by Val Guest.
Plot
Shirley lives in Bristol. While on a seaside holiday at Butlins holiday camp a young typist Shirley Freeman ( Janette Scott) is persuaded by ...
'' (1963) starring
Janette Scott
Thora Janette Scott (born 14 December 1938) is an English retired actress.
Life and career
Scott was born on 14 December 1938 in Morecambe, Lancashire, England. She is the daughter of actors Jimmy Scott and Thora Hird and began her acting ca ...
and
Ian Hendry
Ian Mackendrick Hendry (13 January 1931 – 24 December 1984) was a British actor. He worked on several British TV series of the 1960s and 1970s, including the lead in the first series of '' The Avengers'' and '' The Lotus Eaters'', and played ...
.
The film was produced by
The Rank Organisation
The Rank Organisation was a British entertainment conglomerate founded by industrialist J. Arthur Rank in April 1937. It quickly became the largest and most vertically integrated film company in the United Kingdom, owning production, distribut ...
,
[ Diss 2006, p. 137–139.] which owned Butlin's Ltd itself from 1972 till 2000.
[ Scott 2001, p. 8-9.] Butlins Bognor Regis also served as the setting for the honeymoon scenes in the film ''
The Leather Boys
''The Leather Boys'' is a 1964 British drama film about the rocker subculture in London featuring a gay motorcyclist. This film is notable as an early example of a film that violated the Hollywood production code, yet was still shown in the Unit ...
'' (1964) directed by
Sidney J. Furie
Sidney Joseph Furie (born February 28, 1933) is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and producer best known for his extensive work in both British and American cinema between the 1960s and early 1980s. Like his contemporaries Norman Jewison ...
.
Musical acts to have played at Bognor include
The Hollies
The Hollies are a British pop rock band, formed in 1962. One of the leading British groups of the 1960s and into the mid-1970s, they are known for their distinctive three-part vocal harmony style. Allan Clarke (singer), Allan Clarke and Graham ...
,
The Four Tops
''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite ...
,
Billy Ocean
Leslie Sebastian Charles, (born 21 January 1950), better known by his stage name Billy Ocean, is a British recording artist who had a string of R&B international pop hits in the 1970s and 1980s. He was the most popular British R&B singer-son ...
,
Edwin Starr
Charles Edwin Hatcher (January 21, 1942 – April 2, 2003), known by his stage name Edwin Starr, was an American singer and songwriter. Starr was famous for his Norman Whitfield-produced Motown singles of the 1970s, most notably the number-one ...
,
The Osmonds
The Osmonds were an American family music group who reached the height of their fame in the early to mid-1970s. The group had its best-known configurations as a quartet (billed as the Osmond Brothers) and a quintet (as the Osmonds). The group ...
and
Fats Domino
Antoine Dominique Domino Jr. (February 26, 1928 – October 24, 2017), known as Fats Domino, was an American pianist, singer and songwriter. One of the pioneers of rock and roll music, Domino sold more than 65 million records. Born in New O ...
as well as later acts such as
Atomic Kitten
Atomic Kitten is an English girl group formed in Liverpool in 1998, whose current members are Liz McClarnon, Jenny Frost and Natasha Hamilton. The group was founded by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) members Andy McCluskey and Stuart K ...
,
Mis-Teeq
Mis-Teeq were a British girl group, consisting of Alesha Dixon, Su-Elise Nash and Sabrina Washington. They had two top-ten albums and seven consecutive top-ten singles, with chart-topping success on the UK Singles Chart as well as across Euro ...
,
Olly Murs
Oliver Stanley Murs (born 14 May 1984) is an English singer, songwriter, and television presenter. He was runner-up on the sixth series of '' The X Factor'' in 2009 and was subsequently signed to RCA Records and Sony Music in the United Kingdom ...
, and
Peter Andre
Peter Andre (born Peter James Andrea, 27 February 1973) is an English-Australian singer and television personality of Australian descent.
Andre gained popularity as a singer, best known for his singles "Mysterious Girl" and " Flava". He is als ...
.
Entertainment
The original Bognor Regis camp contained all the tried and tested Butlins entertainment ingredients: Butlins Redcoats, a funfair, a ballroom, a boating lake, tennis courts, a sports field (for the three legged and egg & spoon races and the donkey derby), table tennis and snooker tables, amusement arcades, a theatre and arcades of shops.
Ex More Adventures
Butlins Bognor Regis developed the Ex More Adventures which include a climbing wall, diving courses, horse riding, Land Rover safari, fly fishing and sea fishing, sailing, canoeing and coasteering, some of which are held at Exmoor National Park.
Topping The Bill at Your Centre Stage in Bognor Regis
*''
The Mask Musical'' (30 April 1999 – 25 June 1999)
*''
Casper The Musical'' (28 June 1999 – September 1999)
*''
Spider-Man The Musical'' (6 September 1999 – 26 November 1999)
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
*
Bibliographic notes
References
Websites
News and journals
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bognor Regis (Holiday Camp)
Bognor
Bognor Regis (), sometimes simply known as Bognor (), is a town and seaside resort in West Sussex on the south coast of England, south-west of London, west of Brighton, south-east of Chichester and east of Portsmouth. Other nearby towns i ...
Tourist attractions in West Sussex
Buildings and structures in West Sussex
Bognor Regis