When was Blackpool's heyday?

These black and white photos are just a small selection of similar images from our archives which show the resort in the heydays of the 1950s and 1960s. A snapshot of life on the bustling seafront shows how tourism has always been the bread and butter of Blackpool’s economy. With a refreshment hut serving tea right in the middle of Blackpool beach, one photo shows thousands of people seen huddled together on May 22, 1959. In another photo, a parade of circus elephants are pictured parading along the promenade, lined with spectators, possibly in the 1960s. Hotels, shops and arcades are packed with tourists. The Metropole Hotel can be seen in distance. Blackpool Tower in the moonlight. They are like picture postcards which encompass a typical seaside resort.

The authors apologise if they have offended anyone by calling the inter-war years Blackpool's Heyday but they feel that those years captured 'the spirit of expansion, vitality and confidence of an era when the resort had already outshone all its competitors' and the continental package holiday was still a pipe dream. Blackpool was enjoying a period of development as it had not done since the heady days of the 1890s with the Corporation pouring huge sums of money into the expansion of the seafront. The Promenade was extended north and south to the boundaries with Cleveleys and St Annes, an Open-Air-Baths was opened in 1923 in the south and in the north North Promenade was widened to remove the tram tracks from the roadway and to make way for further improvements the venerable seaward-side Gynn Inn was demolished in 1921 and a new one built on the landward side of the Promenade. Stanley Park was created in the mid-1920s and when the Winter Gardens Company was taken over by Blackpool Tower Company, the big wheel, which had opened in 1896, was closed and demolished in 1929. 'Blackpool's Heyday' brings dozens of fascinating photographs together to bring back memories of those heady days when a Blackpool holiday was a must for thousands of happy folk.

These brilliant images unearthed from our archives show Blackpool when it was in its prime as an archetypal seaside resort. It drew holidaymakers in their thousands, look at the beach photos to see how people flocked to the sands. They could enjoy donkey rides, ice creams, have their fortunes told and enjoy everything the Golden Mile had to offer. A rare colour photo outside Abingdon Street Market where morning shoppers are waiting for the the tram to Marton. This is a classic 1950s view of Blackpool Beach in the 1950s taken from the book Blackpool and the Fylde Coast Memories by Andrew Mitchell and Steve Ainsworth. The Promenade and Talbot Square in the mid 1950s. This was the view from the roof of the Odeon Cinema, Cleveleys looking back towards Blackpool from the Crescent along Fleetwood Road and Kelso Avenue. This was Blackpool Central Station in the 1950s. The second track alongside these carriages identifies the Grand National rollercoaster at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Look, we can get our ball higher the Blackpool Tower, claim these youngsters enjoying beach games.

Blackpool remains Britain’s biggest, brashest and most vibrant holiday resort, drawing 18 million annual visits – despite the rival attractions of the Mediterranean sun. In this lavishly produced pictorial history of the resort’s golden era, former Blackpool Gazette journalist Barry McLoughlin chronicles the six decades up to the mid-1960s when the town was queen of the seaside holiday and overseas stays were only just starting to take off. Although the book presents a nostalgic view of Blackpool’s heyday, it also highlights the contradictions of the resort’s identity as the UK’s tourism capital, contrasting the neon glitz of the Golden Mile with pockets of severe social deprivation today. It is not intended as a definitive history of Blackpool, more of an impressionistic snapshot – literally – of an extraordinary era.

It was Britain’s summer entertainment capital for most of the last century. The first tourists had arrived by stagecoach – from Manchester in 1781, and from Halifax the following year. It was the enterprise of Henry Banks in the early years of the century that saw the beginnings of the town that stands today. In 1863, the North Pier – the first of three along the prom – was built out of cast iron. In 1893, the old Beach Hotel was flattened to make room for the Tower, to this day a beacon for holidaymakers and day-trippers from far and wide. It was not until the 1970s, with the boom in cheap package deals to the Mediterranean, that the tide turned for Blackpool and the stars that had twinkled there, went out.

Blackpool's Heyday 1920-1939. Blackpool's Heyday by Steve Palmer & Brian Turner. Blackpool's Heyday 1920-1939. Blackpool's Heyday 1920-1939