“HERE is a new idea and a fine idea for your holiday: a holiday with all the pleasures of camping, a carefree life roaming the countryside, al fresco meals, the invigorating freshness of the open air, and yet the solid comfort of a wind and weather proof coach to use as a home,” begins a yellow leaflet produced by LNER in 1933 as it introduced the concept of “camping coaches” to its customers.
The leaflet explained: “A number of railway coaches are being fitted up by the London and North Eastern Railway for use as camping outfits. They will accommodate six persons. Each coach is equipped with two bedrooms, plus a living room and a kitchen; all the bedding, including sheets, pillows etc is provided, as well as cutlery, kitchen utensils, cooking stove and lamps.”
As recent Memories have told, these coaches were placed beside picturesque stations. We’ve focussed mainly so far on the amazing stations on the coastal line between Middlesbrough and Whitby, but John Askwith, of the North Eastern Railway Association, points out that Weardale was also open to holidaymakers with camping coaches being stationed at Frosterley, Stanhope, St John’s Chapel and Wearhead.
In Teesdale, there were camping coaches at Barnard Castle and Romaldkirk, and then Richard Barber, of the JW Armstrong Trust, has sent in a truly splendid picture, probably a LNER promotional photograph, of a camping coach at Bowes. The holidaymakers are arranged in deckchairs, which must have come with the coach, surrounded by milk churns, and there’s a bicycle for someone to cycle into the nearby village for supplies.
Interestingly, there are seven people in the picture and a camping coach could only sleep six – for £2 10s a week, or just 10 shillings a person. Perhaps as one is an infant, they were allowed an additional cot.
READ MORE: A TRIP TO THE COAST WHERE THE SANDS END
Bowes, as beautiful as it is, is fairly remote for a family holiday, but you could also rent a camping coach at Barras, which is four miles on the west of the Stainmore summit. Barras station is 1,100ft above sea level – for a time, it was the highest station in England – and would have been surrounded only by quarries and sheep.
The remoteness of the camping-coaches seems to have led the holidaymakers to finding inventive ways to fill their time. For example, Tony Marshall in Darlington has looked out pictures from the 1930s of his father and grandparents (above) enjoying larks on their camping-coach holiday in the Sandsend area on the Middlesbrough to Whitby line.
“Entertainment must have been thin on the ground, as wearing a paper bag on your head and putting your cousin in a bin seemed to have been high on the list of things to do,” says Tony after examining the pictures.
Throughout the 1930s, LNER increased the number of coaches available for hire, and in 1935 introduced the touring camping coach: you started your £20 week at York and at night, while you slept, your coach was shunted so that you woke up in a new location: Pateley Bridge, Aysgarth, Barnard Castle, Glaisdale and Coxwold before ending back at York.
John Askwith has also found evidence that LNER offered “camping cottages”: people were able to camp in (presumably disused) railway properties. There was a camping cottage at Middleton-in-Teesdale.
1958 camping coach brochure. Picture courtesy John Askwith
The Second World War ended the first wave of camping coaches, but in the 1950s, the newly nationalised British Rail reintroduced the scheme. John has a brochure from 1958 showing that most of the locations were on the east coast although, once again, you could camp coach inland as well at Bolton Abbey (number nine on the map) and Goathland (number 10).
The cost of a week from March 29 was £6 rising to £10 10s in the height of summer, although the holiday season ended abruptly on August 30.
READ MORE: THE COASTAL RAILWAY LINE TO WHITBY
It was a successful scheme, as in 1962, there were 223 coaches dotted across the country at more than 100 lineside locations.
However, it was very much an idea of its time: camping coaches were withdrawn in 1971 as motor cars and jet set package holidays became the order of the day.
ON the fence in the foreground of the Bowes picture (above) are three enamel signs advertising Mazawattee Tea. This company was begun in 1887 by the Densham family of London tea-importers from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). They made up their name from a Hindi word, maza meaning pleasure, and a Sinhalese word, wattee, meaning garden.
The Denshams believed in the power of advertising – they had a deal with all railway companies for their enamel signs to be displayed at every station in the land – and gimmicks – you can find interesting shaped Mazawattee tea tins, and their wagons were pulled in London by a couple of tame zebras.
It didn’t work, as their business scaled down drastically after the First World War and collapsed before the Second. The Bowes signs, photographed around 1933, must be a hangover from Mazawattee’s heyday in the 1890s.
Mike Barnard has turned detective.
“In the pictures of the family enjoying the sunshine, they are facing south because the shadows are behind them,” he says. “There is a tree lined hill behind the coach, so that is to the north. This rules out both the camping coach locations at Sandsend because the sea is to the north.
“Also, there is a large open space to the south of the coach, which Sandsend doesn’t have. There is a goods wagon visible on two of the pictures that is on an adjacent track.”
The only camping coach station that this could possibly be is Glaisdale station on the North York Moors on the inland line from Middlesbrough to Whitby.
“Apart from these pictures, I haven’t seen any others of the Glaisdale camping coaches,” says Mike.
- Many thanks to everyone who has been in touch. Are there any more camping coach stories or pictures? What about cottage camping? Email chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk if you have got anything to add
READ MORE: RAILWAY HERITAGE IN PICTURES: THE AMAZING VIADUCTS OF SANDSEND
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