where have I been?

[Gareth Burrows]

I went home this weekend. First to name the town gets a green.

This town, where I spent the first twenty years of my life, is known as the queen of welsh resorts. Lying within a few miles of a famous castle built by Edwards I, ironically to keep the welsh out!



This wide sweep of sand and shingle of the north shore extends two miles (3 km) in a graceful curve between the headlands of the Great Orme and the Little Orme. For most of the distance on the towns North Shore there is a wide curving Victorian promenade separated from the roadway by a strip of garden. The road, collectively known as The Parade, has a different name for each block and it is on these parades and crescents that many of the towns hotels are built.



At one end of the promenade, the beach tails off into the little orme, before passing into rhos on sea.



The town's award winning pier is on the North Shore; it was built in 1878, and is 1,234 feet (376 m) in length and a Grade II listed building. Looking back towards the town from the end of the pier, on a clear day one can see the mountains of Snowdonia rising over the town. A curious major extension of the pier in 1884 was in a landwards direction along the side of what was the Baths Hotel (now where the Grand Hotel stands) to provide a new entrance with a pier pavilion theatre at the North Parade end of the promenade, thus increasing the pier's length to 2,295 feet (700 m).



this pier was incredibly popular in victorian and edwardian times, but has sadly lost out in recent years and fallen into decline. It was, until 15 years ago, the site of a famous theatre known as the grand. Sadly, the grand was burnt down one night by vandals, and now the sad remnants of the theatre are all that remains in view



Standing proud on the promenade is the cenotaph, where I played the last post every year.



the town has a link with Lewis Carroll; because the family of the "real Alice" regularly spent holidays at their holiday-home Penmorfa, later the Gogarth Abbey Hotel and recently the Penmorfa Hotel on the West Shore of Llandudno. Contrary to local myth, Alice Liddell did not meet Carroll in the town, and was not told the Alice stories in the town. A statue still stands on the west shore to mark the link



sadly, penmorfa, or as I knew it in my childhood, the gogarth Abbey, has falled victim to developers, and been partially demolished all the way back to the listed building, in the hope that the local council would then give up and allow the rest of the building to be smashed. In an act of defiance by the council, they have told the developers to go stuff it, and so the building stands abandoned....



however, not all us ugly. Only a few miles up the road lies the fairy glen. The Fairy Glen is a secluded and enchanting gorge on the river Conwy. A favourite with artists and photographers alike. Located only a short distance from Beaver bridge on the outskirts of Betws y Coed, a combination of rapids and cascades on the Conwy river that are chanelled into a narrow ravine. Wooded banks and rock walls clothed with vegetation add to the charm.




Green to the first person to name the town

[GLOC]

Nice shots Garf. Although you do seem to have left the mono filter on the front of the lens for the first few shots

I know where cos you told me, so am not going to spoil it.

[Scuttler]

Llandudno....EDIT ...nah too obvious...and named above

[The Penguin]

Originally Posted by Garf

the town has a link with Lewis Carroll; because the family of the "real Alice" regularly spent holidays at their holiday-home Penmorfa, later the Gogarth Abbey Hotel and recently the Penmorfa Hotel on the West Shore of Llandudno. Contrary to local myth, Alice Liddell did not meet Carroll in the town, and was not told the Alice stories in the town. A statue still stands on the west shore to mark the link

Somewhere with a serious vandalism problem?

[SoggyFox]

Rhyll.

[Gareth Burrows]

Originally Posted by al kennedy

Somewhere with a serious vandalism problem?

unfortunately, you are correct.

[Gareth Burrows]

Originally Posted by al kennedy

Somewhere with a serious vandalism problem?

Originally Posted by SoggyFox

Rhyll.

not Rhyl, but not a million miles away.

[Scuttler]

Colwyn Bay

[Gareth Burrows]

Originally Posted by Scuttler

Colwyn Bay

warm, but no cigar

[Scuttler]

Old Colwyn