Turnstone: Hunstanton writer John Maiden on town losing Blue Lagoon swimming pool, Sandringham Hotel and Glebe Hotel over years

In this week’s column, Hunstanton writer John Maiden discusses amenities the town has lost over the years…

For the past 15 years, I have had to put up with people telling me that the reason they never read Turnstone is because they only buy the Lynn News on Fridays.

Needless to say, I extend a warm welcome to readers old and new as the Lynn News embarks on this new venture.

Recently I have been receiving some interesting feedback on Turnstone from teenage students being taught English by my daughter Caroline at a school in Muscat, Oman.

Usually, feedback comes from much closer to home, often in the form of a chance meeting with a friend or former colleague at Sainsbury's store in Westgate.

Only last week I found myself debating matters arising from the decision taken by Hunstanton Urban District Council in the early 1970s to abandon plans for an all-weather entertainment complex underneath a glazed dome.

The person with whom I was having the conversation seemed to be suggesting that the town had missed out when the "Bubble" was burst, and that the Isle of Man had gained when a similar structure was erected there.

This prompted me to point out that the proposed material for both the leisure centres was Oroglass, which proved to be highly flammable, resulting in serious loss of life when the one that was built on the Isle of Man burned to the ground in August 1974.

The tragedy for our town was the loss of the Blue Lagoon open-air swimming pool, the railway station and the Sandringham Hotel, which were all demolished in order to create sufficient space to accommodate the Bubble, which never got off the ground.

If anyone should think this is an exaggeration, I would remind them that repairs deemed to be needed at the Blue Lagoon could have been paid for with the £25,000, which was handed over to West Norfolk District Council in 1974 when local government was reorganised, thereby consigning Hunstanton UDC to the dustbin of local history.

The Sandringham Hotel survived bombing raids in the Second World War and could easily have been preserved if only the UDC had brought it up to scratch, instead of knocking it down and building a new council office block in Westgate.

This was subsequently sold to Swains International and in time was also demolished, to make way for Eastland Grange, the latest McCarthy & Stone development to open in town.

The most disappointing aspect was the council's decision not to proceed with the purchase of the railway station, or the land on which it was situated, because of all the amenities Hunstanton has lost during my lifetime, the railway line to Lynn is the most painful for me.

Followed by the Blue Lagoon, boating lake and pier. Along with the Sandringham Hotel, the town has also lost the Glebe Hotel and several notable Victorian properties along the seafront and situated elsewhere in the town.

Hunstanton was more successful at retaining its Public Open Spaces, which was made reasonably easy while the le Strange Estate retained ownership of all the land designated as being part of The Green.

Unfortunately, after the local authority either bought or leased this land in 1955, the land shown on legal documents as the Upper and Lower Green has gradually made parts of The Green resemble a rather shabby poor relation when compared to the adjacent Esplanade Gardens.

No one can dispute the fact that The Green was briefly at its very best in 2002, which was when Tony Cassie presented me with his evocative photograph showing The Green as it was always intended to look by the founder of Hunstanton, Henry le Strange.