Tourism
History
The
name ‘The Warren’ has described this place for centuries and simply implies it
was used to raise rabbits on a commercial basis for meat and fur, probably
since the Middle Ages. The word
‘Dawlish’ has been interpreted as ‘black, dark or even devil water’, a fact not
advertised widely to the tourists who have visited here and nearby Dawlish
since the close of the 18th century.
The
construction of the railway in the mid 19th century along its
contentious coastal route was in part to appeal to holiday-makers and as an
afterthought “Warren Halt” station was constructed in 1905. An increase in leisure pursuits saw the
establishment of Warren Golf Club on the Inner Warren in 1892 and increased
wealth and leisure time since the turn of the 20th century has seen
ever increasing number of ‘sun-and-sand-seekers’ travelling to the Devon
coasts. The station here was lengthened
to become “Warren Platform” in 1907 and then rebuilt 400m north to its present
location in 1912 where it was renamed “Dawlish Warren”. The present name of this site (and the
recording area boundary) is therefore relatively recent and was thought up by
someone at Great Western Railways. On
August Bank Holiday 1955, over 7000 people crammed on the trains, leaving
behind several hundredweight of sand on their return back into Exeter.
Dawlish
Warren became a home-from-home for wealthy visitors from the 1920s and Bill
Hunt built the first of “a range of dwellings which ranged from crude, tiny
shacks to beautifully built houses with stained glass windows, oak staircases
and fittings to match!”. The majority of these were built at Warren Point (and
provided many of the garden ‘escape’ plants in the Recording Area) and at one
time even included a post office. Storms in the late 1940s brought the end of
the resident community but the
last vestiges were eventually destroyed in winter storms and shifting, eroding sands by the early
1960s.
Undeterred
and with increased private car ownership, hundreds of beach huts were built in
the 1970s, covering a large area of the Recording Area but with the added safeguard of being movable
to avoid winter weather. The establishment of the Local Nature Reserve
restricted numbers and only one survived into the 21st
century. More semi-permanent but safer
accommodation has in recent decades transformed Dawlish Warren village into a
sea of caravan sites, the occupants of which are supported by a range of
amusement arcades, souvenir and fast-food shops. More recently the amusements
area has been redeveloped, with all of the shops initially being replaced by a
single larger establishment, alongside the amusement arcade and pub. Other shops
have since been added and plans have been approved for further developments on
site.
Within
living memory the land use of Dawlish Warren has changed dramatically. Anecdotes reflecting the rich history include
a man who once recalled when in the 1940s he complained when the Americans came
and built a gun-emplacement in his garden, upon what is now the now Dune Ridge
near 7th tee; another recalled an oval cycle race-track he and
friends built here in the 1960s and an old man recalled how his golfing-partner
was killed when he trod on a bomb and mused how the incident had put him off
his shot!
Reference:
Barber, C. 1992 Dawlish and Dawlish Warren. Sprint Print. Exeter