History of Weston-super-Mare

Weston-super-Mare is an unusal name for a town and no, it has nothing to do with horses!  It is a mixture of Anglo Saxon and Latin and is often misspelt as Western Super Mare.  Oh and there are those hyphens too, along with the "s" of "super" being in lower case.  But we won't hold it against you if you get it wrong, so long as you get here and enjoy yourselves!

For those who really want to know, West Tun was Anglo Saxon for a settlement in the west.  This is obviously such a general term that there became far too many such settlements for anyone to be able to distinguish one from the other.  It is thought that in the 13th Century when the overlords wanted to collect their taxes, they ordered the monks who scribed in Latin to distinguish between the approximately 60 settlements all known as Weston. So after various latin appendages from various writers of Latin over a period of years, we eventually became Weston-super-Mare, or Weston Above The Sea,  we think somewhere in the middle of the 14th Century.  

It remained a small town until the Victorians discovered the fresh air, the benefits of sea water and then invented the steam train, when Weston-super-Mare grew quickly.  There's much Victorian heritage here and many of the buildings were designed by a very skillful and imaginative architect, Hans Price.  

For those of you interested in ancient history, we can even offer you an Iron Age hillfort to explore, here or you can enjoy a visit to Weston Museum that takes you through a tour of pre-history to the present age.

Weston-super-Mare’s prominence as a thriving seaside resort began in Victorian times when people flocked to the town in their droves to sample magical healing powers.  With its fresh sea air and saltwater bathing, it was regarded as a health spa by doctors who advocated the benefits of both drinking and bathing in salt water and also of inhaling the seaside air. The combination led people to escape from their smog-filled factories and cities and head to the North Somerset coastal town for a healthy break for a week each year.

Weston capitalised on its new-found popularity. The town’s first hotel, which is now part of the Royal Hotel, opened in 1810 and ten years later John Howe who bought Knightstone Island for £200 opened his spa baths on the island.

Howe’s Baths offered hot and cold salt water baths as well as accommodation for the invalids and a refreshment room and reading room. Around this time it was the fashion to swim naked so the beaches were segregated into men’s and women’s areas with the first ladies’ beach being at the secluded Anchor Cove.

Later on, to protect bathers’ modesty, swimmers stepped into the sea from Victorian bathing machines. Like small portable beach huts on wheels, the machines allowed swimmers to wade into the water where, once deep enough, the occupant would disembark into the water before returning to the bathing machine to walk back to the shore and dress after their swim.

Weston’s reputation as a health spa resort continued when Dr Edward Long Fox, a pioneer in the treatment of physical and mental disorders, set up a centre on Knightstone Island in 1830. The island, which is attached to the mainland by a causeway, now houses the Dr Fox’s Tea Room in his honour.

As well as lapping up the health benefits Weston had to offer, visitors were also enjoying the other attractions which came as bi-products of the town’s popularity. Weston was now unrecognisable from the small fishing settlement of around 30 houses that it had been before King George III extolled the virtues of sea bathing and sea air as the way to go after a visit to the Dorset town of Weymouth.

The railway arrived in Weston in 1841 bringing in even more holiday makers but to begin with the carriages had to be drawn part of the way by horses because some residents complained they did not want noisy steam engines.

Another huge influx of visitors arrived by paddle steamers from Wales when Birnbeck Pier opened in 1867. But the pier was much more than just a landing jetty. On a typical Bank Holiday up to 15,000 people would arrive by boat to enjoy the pier’s other attractions such as a theatre of wonders, mechanical models and shooting gallery. 

The Victorians’ love-affair with the sea and their wish to get even closer to it, especially when the tide was out, led them to build the Grand Pier, which was opened in 1904. It was soon extended a further 450 metres into the water with the intention of running a regular passenger boat service to Cardiff.  This plan was abandoned when they realised it was impossible to have a regular timetable because Weston has the second highest tidal range in the world. The extension to the pier was soon dismantled and the pier was just reserved for entertainment.

Birnbeck Pier was taken over by the military during the Second World War and became HMS Birnbeck - a site for important military research and weapons testing. Among the scientists based there was Barnes Wallis, the inventor of the bouncing bomb. Early tests for that weapon which skipped across the water before hitting its target, were carried out at Birnbeck.

With Birnbeck and the Weston coastline from Brean Down to Sand Point being used for military research and testing, as well as the proximity of Weston airfield, the town was a target for enemy fire during WW2 when 129 people lost their lives and more than 1,000 were injured in raids.  Large areas were destroyed.

The town’s wartime links don’t end there. In 1914 Weston artist Alfred Leete’s drawing of Lord Kitchener was adapted into the famous Your Country Needs You recruitment poster campaign. Indeed Weston played an active role in the First World War.  Large numbers of soldiers were billeted here for training and they learned how to dig trenches on the beach.  Around 80 per cent of the trees in Weston Woods were chopped down for military purposes. With men being redirected elsewhere, Weston had the first female tram driver in the country in Beatrice Page. She was one of several women recruited to operate the trams in place of the menfolk who had gone to war. 

Although Weston has always been best known as a seaside town, the growth of its development encouraged new business and Weston was also known for brickmaking and pottery.

Weston had been booming before the Second World War to such an extent that in 1936 it opened its own airfield and a year later, on the Whitsun holiday, 2,555 passengers travelled on Western Airways from Weston Airport as the route became one of the busiest short haul routes in the UK.

It wasn’t Weston’s first association with aviation. Bentfield Charles Hucks made history when he became the first aviator to fly over the Bristol Channel, flying his Blackburn monoplane on a return flight from Weston to Cardiff in 1911.

Weston was by now used to being a place for pioneers. The island of Flat Holm, which lies just off the bay, became assured of its place in history when the world’s first radio transmission across water was made from there by Italian Guglielmo Marconi in 1897 when his signals were received in Wales.

As well as owning that piece of history, Flat Holm was used as an isolation hospital to protect the mainland from a cholera epidemic in 1883.

One of the resort’s best known attractions, the Grand Pier, had to be rebuilt following a fire in 2008 while Birnbeck Pier has fallen into disrepair and is now out of bounds.  The piers were originally built to bring people closer to the water,  but with our tides going out so far,  Marine Lake was created in 1927 to ensure that bathers could still enjoy the water when the tide is out.

Weston also assured its place in musical history. The Beatles’ Victorian swimwear shoot was performed while they were on their 1963 six-day trip to Weston where they performed twice a day at the Odeon.  Meanwhile, the sleeve for Oasis’ single Roll With It was shot on Weston beach and a teenage Diana Dors once took part in a beauty pageant at the Tropicana when it was still being used as a Lido.

Weston’s history is rich and diverse, rather like the town and all its attractions.