Hi-de-hi! Welcome to Butlin’s national heritage site
Having a ball...dozens of campers join in the fun and games at the popular Butlin’s holiday park at Skegness Esplanade in 1939 THE original Butlin’s holiday park in Skegness will be officially named as a site of historic importance today – one of 1,012 sites added to this year’s National Heritage List for England.
Billy Butlin opened his first holiday camp at the Skegness Esplanade and Tower Gardens in Lincolnshire in 1936. The park had accommodation for guests as well as swimming pools and other leisure facilities, like dodgem cars, which Billy shipped over from America.
The site has been Grade II listed, which means it is a “particularly important building of more than special interest”. Its original features and buildings, which still stand today, cannot be renovated or destroyed without permission.
Other sites added to the list include a 17th century working men’s club in East Sussex, a former 16th century gallows in Dorset, 13 parks and gardens and two acoustic detection mirrors carved into a cliff in Dover. They detected the sound of incoming planes in the First and Second World Wars.
Historic England’s chief executive Duncan Wilson said: “Ninety-nine per cent of people in England live within a mile of a listed building or place.
“These sites are irreplaceable and showcase the wonderfully distinct and diverse character of England and its people across thousands of years.”