On this day in Wembury — 6 May 1939
An advertisement in the Daily News of London invited readers to enjoy “all the usual sports, plus riding, roller skating, and rifle range” at Wembury Point Holiday Camp, near Plymstock. The camp, which had opened only a few years earlier, was one of several coastal leisure ventures that sprang up along the South Devon coast in the interwar years, promising affordable seaside holidays for ordinary families.
These adverts appeared frequently in national papers during the 1930s as Devon’s coastal tourism boomed. The Wembury Point camp offered full-board stays, sports facilities, and a social calendar of dances and games. Its hilltop position gave views across Wembury Bay and the Mewstone — ideal selling points for visitors from London and the Midlands seeking sun, sea, and clean air before the onset of wartime restrictions.
By May 1939, however, the resort’s carefree tone was shadowed by the growing tension in Europe. Within a few months, the site’s fortunes would change dramatically. During the Second World War, the Ministry of Defence requisitioned Wembury Point for naval training and coastal defence, ending the brief holiday-camp era.
The little advertisement from May 1939 therefore captures the final season of Wembury’s pre-war seaside leisure — a moment of calm and optimism before the coastline once again became a zone of national defence.
(Daily News, 6 May 1939)
Entries are summaries and interpretations of historical newspaper reports.