The little holiday homes we almost forgot…

The front of the little Groomsport holiday chalet which started our conversation on the tradition of these buildings all around Belfast Lough. Photo by Chantelle Niblock.

Forty or fifty years ago, roads around Bangor and North Down were dotted with compact wooden chalets. Sitting snugly on the land, they were refuges built around a hundred years ago by families wanting to escape to the seaside from the grime of a growing Belfast.

The original “flat-pack” buildings, some were constructed by specialist companies and many were simply copied or built with a knowledge that most of us have lost, using whatever people could find or reuse.

It’s been estimated that at one time there might have been as many as 400 around the Bangor and North Down area on coastal sites and along the main roads into the city. Now, so many have gone - their sought-after sites bought over by developers or the plots used to rebuild more solid family homes - but a few still remain.

I was so lucky to take a walk around the Andrews Shorefield site just outside Groomsport with Dr. Kevin Miller, Heritage Projects Officer with the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society and Dr. Chantelle Niblock, a lecturer with the School of Architecture at Queen’s University. This particular chalet was identified by the UAHS as an important example of its kind and while still in private ownership, is now a listed building . Both Kevin and Chantelle are fascinated by the history of these unassuming little buildings and while we started and ended our walk talking about the yellow house, you can sense their excitement wandering around another chalet in the area which you will also hear, is very much a vibrant and lively community.

The rear of the yellow chalet near Groomsport and the other chalet we explored (currently on the market) at Andrews Shorefield (both pictures by Chantelle Niblock); one of the four listed water pump markers on the Shorefield site and an old gateway on the coastal path at Smelt Mill Bay beside Stricklands Glen .Following the industrial use of that area over a century ago, several holiday chalets were built. More were placed up the fields towards the Bryansburn Road.

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