Accessible way to learn about village
Blackrock Tidy Towns are providing an easy accessible way for residents and others who might wish to find out something about the history of the village.
Under their recently launched Heritage project podcast recordings are being made regarding buildings that comprised amenities that sadly are no more.
The first of these series of podcasts on Callans sea water baths has been completed and is available on the internet. The recordings are to be oral and sound recollections running a little over ten minutes in duration.
Callans Baths were formerly sited at the top end of the main promenade and closed in 1975. The village’s post office and Gerry’s hardware occupied the site in recent years, and now the village’s barber shop operates on part of it.
The village changed dramatically over the closing decades of the past millennium and in the early years of the current one.
So much that was part of every day life and attracted visitors when holidays were popular in the village for those living in surrounding counties and one time for Scots folk, who regularly spent part of the summer enjoying the scenery and the amenities that were then available, has gone.
Bus excursions from Belfast were a feature nearly every Sunday for a good part of the year, especially over the summer months.
That all changed and much that was appealing and gave so much pleasure and enjoyment disappeared, like ballroom dancing, swimming in an Olympic sized pool, luxuriating in salt water baths, roller skating.
This resulted with the closure and demolition of the Pavilion ballroom and swimming pool that both have been replaced by housing developments.
The skating hall was first turned into commercial premises, and today is the Village Shopping Centre. Callans sea water baths, like a number of others that were in the village are also no more.
Only older folk might have cause to remember those days and where those properties were located in the village.
For those who would like to be more familiar with the former landscape of the village, the Podcasts provide a great opportunity to gain a history snap shot of six different properties that stood along the Main Street.
Also to be featured is the Swan Hotel, which is now is part of the Clermont Arms.
The podcasts will be a ready source of information without having to engage in research and trawling through books.