FRIARS POINT GUEST HOUSE In 1850 Francis Crawshay built the first Marine Hotel on Friars Point, Barry Island. He was a keen yachtsman and somewhat eccentric - the beds in the hotel were bunks, as on board ship and access to the upper floors was by iron ladders. A description of the hotel was given in a sale poster of 1877 as follows:- "The house has accommodation for over 100 guests in the dining room, a coffee room, bar, bar parlour and tap, a taproom, two kitchens, nine bedrooms, two cellars and all the necessary offices. Outside there is a 2,000 gallon water tank from which water is taken to supply the hotel. To enable guests to arrive at the hotel a ferryboat service from the Ship (hotel) is available or at low tides guests can walk across." In 1873, Mr J.D. Treharne bought Barry Island, and Mr S.A. Tylke, in an article for a local newspaper in 1926 said, "Mr Treharne wished to attract visitors to the Island using passenger boats that plied in the channel. He built a pier to enable them to land there, and hoped that they would stay at his hotel". By 1876 the pier had been completed and in that year over 15,000 visitors arrived at the Island, some by ferry from the "Ship", some by landing at Treharne's Pier, and some by walking across at low tide. In that year Mr Atkins was the hotel manager. In 1877 the Island was put up for auction by Mr Treharne, but failed to meet its reserve price. Mr Dunscombe, who was the licensee at the King William Hotel at Cadoxton in 1861, left there in 1867, and started working for Francis Crawshay as a boatman, gamekeeper and odd-job man. He took over the management of the hotel, and held it until the hotel and the Island were sold to Lady Mary Clive for £12,500. She later gave it, and the Island, to her son, Lord Windsor for his 21st birthday. On completion of The Marine Hotel at Plymouth Road in 1890, the licence was transferred from the former hotel, which was demolished in the early 1890's, to make way for the construction of Friars Point Guesthouse as a summer residence for the Windsor Family in 1894. The grounds were landscaped and the entrance to the lower terrace was complete with two small statuettes of children with their dogs on each side of the steps leading down. No account of the old Marine Hotel is complete without its ghost story which is as follows: - It was a somewhat dull day in winter when at about 4 p.m., Mr Dunscombe and Mr Tylke carrying a few rabbits passed kitchen-wards into the house, the front part always being locked. The kitchen was a large one with an immense table of the Crawshay structure (and possibly still there). On entering the kitchen they found Mrs Tylke in a dead faint and Mrs Ford, the housekeeper, in nurse-like attendance. On her recovery they learned that she had seen an elderly man and, shouting to him, followed him with Mrs Ford into a pantry which had a small barred window at the end. The man dissolved into the wall and disappeared. Upon hearing the description of the apparition, Mr Dunscombe declared that it was his old master, Mr. Crawshay who had recently died. The pantry was his old wine cellar. Lord Windsor later sold the house to Mr. William Graham (later Sir William), the manager of the dry dock, who refurbished, extended and completely re-furnished it. Sir William lived there until he built the White House at the Knap, then sold it to the Council, who later let it at a low rental to Distillers. Upon that company's take-over, it passed to BP Chemicals, then to Butlins Holiday Camp and finally to the Barry Island Resort.   © T. CLEMETT 1999
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