MORECAMBE. Tea & Toasted Fruit Loaf At The Winter Gardens.

The impressive Winter Gardens frontage on the Prom.

Sometimes when I’m out and about on my travels I drop on an unexpected treat, this latest one was on Saturday just gone by. The year is slowly getting it’s things together ready to be on it’s way, so the day’s are starting to shorten and the weather is getting a bit more unfriendly. Not the sort of situation that encourage me to be out and about. Nevertheless I decided on a trip up to Morecambe, an easy journey, not too long and there would be plenty of places to shelter in case things got a bit on the inclement side.

Ahh, tea and toasted fruit loaf with proper butter ( lots of……..)

I had a walk around on arrival and touched base with a couple of favourite locations. It was as I made my way back along the Prom passing the Winter Gardens Theatre I spotted it was open to visitors and so was the cafe. I wandered in and while the restoration is still very much a work in progress it has a beating heart again. Possibly also a ghostly one, as some time back the theatre featured in an episode of the TV ghost hunting show “Most Haunted”. So as well as finding a chance to take a look though a window onto Morecambe’s theatre past I also had and excellent pot of tea and buttered fruit loaf.

The stage and boxes either side. Though still in need of much restoration it gives the onlooker a taste of the oroginal grandeur.

The Winter Gardens is one of the architectural highlights of the town along with the sublime Midland Hotel across the way. The Winter Garden’s history has been a bit rocky of late since it’s closure in 1977 due to the changes in entertainment fashions. Luckily it was listed the same year, with a Friends of Group forming in 1986 with a program of restoration commencing at the same time.

I think you’ll need quite a long ladder to get that ceiling cleaned.

Boxes stage left? ( or is it right?) Yes that is a Teddy Bear wearing a top hat, not a spectral audience member.

Dating from 1897 the Winter Gardens were designed by Magnall & Littlewood with the renown theatre architect Frank Matcham acting as a consultant. Originally the complex featured seawater bathing and a ballroom. Sadly there’s bathing no more and the ballroom was demolished in 1982, its box like replacement shall we say, lacks the certain elegance of its next door neighbour.

Even the ticket booth has a certain style about it.

Looking at the tilework and woodwork I wonder when and why this sort of elegance went out of fashion and faceless concrete boxes became the accepted norm.

The entrance foyer mosaic floor, you were entering a place with a bit of style and panache.

A playbill of yesterday. Nostalgia on the wall.

Time to leave, back out into the modern world, leaving the ghosts of entertainment past to their rest for now.

I’ve made a note in my travelling diary to check for when the theatre is open again in the new year so I can catch up with further future progress. And of course another pot of tea and toast.

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