Sunny Beach Escapes History
With our heartfelt thanks to a talented local filmmaker, who has a passion for the seafront properties of Shanklin and Sandown. He has graciously given us a lot of history about our beautiful Sunny Beach building and the seafronts in general. We are so grateful to him for his time and contagious enthusiasm for the area and the magnificent Victorian buildings on both seafronts, some of which have sadly fallen into disrepair, and we fear for their future. We are fortunate to be the custodians of one small piece of this history and to share this building in its beautiful location with our extended Sunny Beach family of friends and guests.
The Sunny Beach Escapes building began life named "Warwick House". It seems to have first been occupied by Edward Thomas Blew (1847-1927) and his family. The house was possibly built with money he and his wife Frances had made from their lodgers over the years at Norfolk House (now called Waterfront inn) further along the front. (Incidentally, Charles Darwin had stayed at Norfolk House while he continued writing On the Origin of Species which he'd begun in Sandown at Kings Head).
Blew's maternal grandfather was William Colenutt (1777-1841), who excavated the path from the top of Shanklin Chine and opened it to the public. The front grew out from the direction of the chine before the esplanade road was built. Interestingly, William was a well-known local fisherman (and alleged smuggler). He was also the first person to operate bathing machines on Shanklin beach. William also built Fisherman's Cottage, at the end of the Esplanade. We do not know why it was named Warwick House, but it seems to have been completed in the 1870s along with Esher (the property attached next door) and Redcliff.
Warwick House was the permanent residence of Edward Blew and his family by the time of the 1881 census. They had four boys: Edward Lale, Robert T, Frederick E, and Arthur J. After being at Warwick, they had two girls: Mabel B, born in 1882, and Kate Isabel, born in 1884. The only photograph available is of the first son, Edward Lale, much later in life, but he appears to have continued to live and work on Shanklin's shore. Outside of the family, there was also a live-in domestic servant who helped tend to the guests. Her name was Mary Emily Morgan. Born in Ryde, she was 32 by the first appearance of a guest of note at Warwick's who appeared in May 1887 as reported in the month's Fashionable Intelligence list in the Hampshire Advertiser:
"Staying at Warwick House was both Lady and Miss Cotton". In years past, Lady Cotton had been photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron at Dimbola Lodge in Freshwater. Lady Cotton was born Mary Ryan in 1848 and had been raised by Julia after she found her begging on Putney Heath in London. She became Cotton after marrying Henry John Stedman Cotton (born 1845), who fell in love with her after seeing one of her photographs Julia had taken. They married in Freshwater, and Julia took another notable photo of the pair on their wedding day. They had four children, but sadly, Lady Cotton suffered from a long illness and passed away in May, 4 years after staying at Warwick House.
In IOW County Press, October 1887, there is a job request for a general servant for Warwick. It says apply to Mrs. Morgan, so she was still there, but she might have been training a replacement as she marries a Mr. Joseph Smith and is not present by the census of 1891 upon which a Mary Resink has taken the role. On October 10th, 1888, a guest named Margaret Helen Daubeney dies at Warwick, aged only 24. She is reported to be the daughter of the late Rev. Thomas Daubeney of Eastington House in Gloucestershire. There is no mention as to why she was here or what she died of, but her father had died just the year before from blood poisoning.
In August 1890, Shanklin Pier was opened across from the hotel at a length of 1,200 feet. A Stollwercks Merkur vending machine stood out front of the pier offering a selection of small squares of chocolate of different flavours wrapped in paper with printed pictures on.
In 1892, the lift was built behind the hotel. This early open structure was water powered such that water was pumped to the top, filled up a tank under the lift's floor, then when the release break was pressed, the weight of the water would take down one lift and bring the other to the top and repeat the process. The sound of the water filling up would perhaps be a common sound out back of the building from here on. The Blew family was still living there in the 1911 Census with the sons Robert and Frederick now working as Boatmen on the shore and Arthur is a swimming instructor.
However, by November 1915, the IOW Observer reports the building was up for rent. The first and second world wars were not good to any of the seafront properties, with most of the original floors being ripped out and used for the war from most of the properties. A beautiful hotel next door called Spa and a lovely early cottage further along called Swiss were destroyed.
It seems to have retained the name Warwick till at least 1936 with a reference for a job for a waiter in May that year. Pump houses were put at the back of several of the hotels along the front in WW2 and camouflaged with rubble. The Pumps behind Warwick specifically were Numbers 21 and 22.
Eventually, after much repair, the hotel reopened as Meyrick Cliffs. The first reference to which was in July 1955 with a job opening for a Kitchen Maid on wages of 5 pounds 10 shillings a week.
There is also a story in the 60s from a couple who saved up working summers in the kitchen at the hotel, then went off on an adventure on the hippy trail round India in a bus.
The front of the hotel was boxed in to extend the restaurant/dance floor area sometime between the 60s-80s, which was still in situ prior to being converted into today's apartments but looked grotty in parts (painted pink). The local filmmaker had been told that the owners had left the property in 2007 as they had run out of money and fled to India one morning while guests were still there, they left the staff unpaid and everything inside of any value was taken by debt collectors.
In 2010, the local filmmaker claimed heritage squatting and to raise awareness of the plight of some of the beautiful Victorian buildings on the seafronts that were neglected and falling into disrepair. He spent the entire summer of 2010 locked inside, mostly alone, warding off vandals, drawing the layout, and filming most of the rooms as it stood at that time.
In 2011/12 the property was bought and renovated by a local builder, who removed the unsightly front addition and reverted it back to the Victorian walls and converted the interior into six lovely seafront apartments, with a beach townhouse on the side. It is now known as Sunny Beach Apartments, and we are lucky enough to be the custodians of three of them between us.