Holiday trip sparked pie family’s bid to build bigger future at Welsh resort
THIS is the story of how a family of pork pie makers from Rochdale went to Llandudno and erected the then largest and tallest building in the resort, on the site of what had been a vineyard, that was to become The Winter Gardens, towering over the Victorian buildings.
It began when the Brierley family came to Llandudno in the early 1900’s for their extended holidays.
They rented a whole house on each visit and the son, Zachery Jnr, fell in love with Llandudno.
As a young man, in the days of horse-drawn transport, he had an immediate interest in the new motors cars.
He persuaded his father, Zachery Snr. to motorise his fleet of delivery vans and became very interested in motor engines.
In 1914 Zachary Jnr. was conscripted into the
Army, and by good fortune became a despatch rider in central London; later becoming Acting Sergeant charge of an army workshop.
After the war, not having crossed the Channel, he returned to Rochdale and bought a motor coach or Charabanc, and soon had a fleet of twenty! A depot was opened and a service between the Lancashire cotton towns and North Wales seaside resorts was established.
The business prospered, so Zachary built a large garage and transport depot, on Gloddaeth Avenue, Llandudno - the heart of a network of transport services to all parts of the North and Midlands.
An upper floor he added was an overnight. car park. Motor cars were by then becoming common with the middle classes, but the car park was a flop as there wasn’t a problem with parking in the town then. Simultaneously another extensive garage and workshop was constructed on Conway Road, near Craig-y-don.
But in 1931 the Government introduced an arbitrary limit of thirty buses which any company could operate, so in 1933 Zachary decided to replace his transport hub on Gloddaeth Avenue with The Winter Gardens, comprising a 2,000 seat theatre and ballroom - later sold to Odeon Cinemas.
By 1939 it was clear that the Conway Road workshops would be needed for war work, making mainly, aircraft components.
One project was designed and manufactured in just five weeks: Wading equipment (a kind of snorkel) for Sherman Tanks for the “D Day” landings which kept the tanks’ air intake and exhaust clear of the waves during the attack.
Once clear of the waves, the snorkels were ejected by explosives.
A very important success!