A patch of seaside shells revealed by the wind has become a sobering reminder of a lost town swallowed by sand and torn apart by disapproving authorities. Half a century ago the Flintshire beach and its dunes were home to 3,000 “structures” accommodating idyll-seekers, holiday home owners and former refugees.
Known as the “Hidden Valley” in the dunes, it was dubbed a “slum by the sea”. Yet children who grew up at Talacre Warren remember the place as a “magical playground”. They foraged for bullets fired by WW11 Spitfires and shared the dunes with huge numbers of rabbits which burrowed under chalets and terrified them as they tried to sleep.
These days there are few obvious signs of the large community that crowded into Hidden Valley. Incongruously, a chimney stack pokes out from the dunes, buried for almost 80 years and saved from the clearances that took place in the 1960s.
This week, a rectangle of shells clinging to a brick base was uncovered on Talacre beach – a reminder of happy times when Hidden Valley residents could open their back doors and stroll out onto the sand.
It was also a warning from the past of the perils of meddling with nature – how the community unwittingly unleashed the power of the dunes to engulf properties standing in their way. Sign up for the North Wales Live newsletter sent twice daily to your inbox
Hidden Valley on Talacre Warren had a road running through it and even a small gift shop run by Mrs Marks. Yet it was decidedly ramshakle, stuffed full of threadbare caravans, abandoned railway carriages and old double decker buses.
Some people built impressive wooden chalets; others were little better than garden sheds. Few had mod cons of any description. To outsiders, it was a “shanty town”.
Dilapidated buses, caravans and other structures at Talacre in 1959(Image: SSPL via Getty Images)
For all that, it was a happy community noted for its colourful characters and uncomplicated way of life. Within months, much of it had disappeared. Looking back now, a local woman said online: “Seems so sad a whole way of life has gone.”
Today, the dunes at Talacre and neighbouring Gronant remains as popular as ever with holidaymakers and people looking for permanent seaside living. And despite what went on here during WW11, the shoreline has retained its globally important wildlife habitats. Still standing strong after 250 years is Talacre’s famous Point of Ayr lighthouse.
War-time evacuees
In the 1930s, the first DIY holiday homes began appearing on the Warren, land reclaimed from the sea in the 19th century. When war broke out, the local population swelled dramatically as evacuees fled Manchester and, in particular, Liverpool.
Some arrived with means to build their own basic homes, others were penniless and relied on local largesse. Many were single mums determined to keep their children safe.
Until they assimilated, English children were teased in local Welsh-speaking schools. But by and large they loved their new lives away from the bombs raining down on Liverpool docks. On occasions, evacuated families would climb the highest dunes and gaze sadly at the glow in the sky above their home city as it was pummelled.
A former Hidden Valley resident recalled: “There were dog fights overhead and occasional plane crashes but, for the youngsters at least, the dunes were a wonderful playground and they felt safe and sound, despite the war.
“A woman added: “You could hear the planes overhead at night as they came up the estuary towards Liverpool. It didn’t seem to affect us though as we were in a little cocoon of our own. I know it sounds daft as there was a war on, but it was a wonderful life.”
Flowers left poignantly on a chimney stack in the Talacre dunes is one of the most visible reminders of the lost community(Image: Adrian Williams)
War footing
During the war, Talacre beach was transformed. Under threat of invasion by Hitler’s troops, pillboxes were sited overlooking the beach and rows of larch posts were dug into the sand to prevent enemy gliders landing. Barbed wire and mines prevented access to land from the coast.
After the war, the pillboxes became children’s dens or were used as picnic spots. Some can still be seen.
Local Dad’s Army-style patrols were mounted, equipped with pickaxe shafts and little training. Despite this, legend has it that a German spy was located and arrested in the Hidden Valley community.
The beach itself was used as an aircraft firing range. Fighters flew over the community every day, shooting at wooden targets in the dunes. Trainee Spitfire pilots also trained firing at flags – flat lengths of canvas – and windsock-like “drogues” towed by aircraft on 1,000ft-long cable.s After each session these were dropped near the lighthouse to check the pilot’s score.
If targets were unavailable, Spitfires would simply fire into the dunes, just to become familiar with the massive jolting of the plane’s cannons.
One former resident recalled: “Us lads would sit under the huts and when they’d finish firing we used to run out and collect all the spent bullets – the brass cartridges and the metal clips. We’d put them all together and go home looking like Mexican bandits – great fun!”
WW11 pillbox on Talacre beach(Image: Mark Anderson/Wiki)
Talacre beach was also used for testing new devices such as “window”, the British codename for anti-radar foil now more commonly known as chaff. Highly successful, it consisted of small strips of aluminum foil dropped from Allied bombers to create massive clouds of false echoes on enemy radar screens.
During testing, it was said the whole village was often covered in a blanket of silver.
After the war, many evacuees were reluctant to return to their “flattened and smelly” cities. Joined by others looking for an escape from 1950s drudgery, the Hidden Valley community kept growing.
There were plenty of challenges. Sewerage was, at best, primitive. The site lacked mains drainage, electricity and gas. Every summer, drinking water was a major challenge: stand-pipes were provided but, under little pressure, water just dribbled out.
Run-down coaches and buses housed large families despite lacking electricity or running water(Image: Mirrorpix)
Trouble brewing
Many residents grew their own veg. For meat, rabbit was plentiful: in 1906, an aristocratic shooting party of eight guns bagged 510 rabbits on Talacre Warren in a single day, along with 45 hares. More often than not, the inhabitants fought running battles with local rabbits over their veg.
Nevertheless, by early 1949 Hidden Valley residents had managed to design and build their own church. It took them just three months, yet such was the shortage of chairs the worshippers were often obliged to bring their own. By then, the resident population had risen to 500, growing to 1,500 each summer as holidaymakers arrived.
But signs of trouble were brewing. In July 1953, the Liverpool Echo reported a visit by a Housing Ministry engineering inspector assessing the potential for local sewage disposal. He noted emerging problems.
The newspaper reported: “The sand dunes, which used to be more or less stabilised by a heavy growth of dune grass, are becoming weather-eroded as the grass is worn away by campers crossing the dunes to the beach.
“Whether the protecting barrier of dunes will eventually disappear and let in the sea will have to be taken into account when making any long-terms plans for the area.”
Gronant dunes, which stretch from Prestatyn in Denbighshire to Point of Ayr, Flintshire, are home to a variety of important animal and plant species(Image: ClwydRuth/Wiki)
Swallowed by sand
The inspector would have been aware the destabilised dunes were already on the move. Sands had covered one of two former lifeboat cottages on the Warren, occupied by the Terry family. For 32 years they’d lived in the stone cottage, formerly one of two used to house the captain and crew of a light ship moored off Talacre in 1883.
In 1948, the Liverpool Evening Express reported: “Shifting sands are slowly covering their cottage home, mounting the walls and filling the gardens. Windows which once looked out to sea now gaze upon a massive sandbank towering high above the roof.
“In less than three years they have seen the growing mound of sand bury the next-door cottage, leaving only the fire chimneys like a lonely grave stones. The menace is now at their own doorstep, growing larger as each gale shifts the sand nearer and higher.
“At night the Terrys go to bed wondering whether the morning will find their house buried.” During the day they frantically cleared sand and planted brushwood hedges in vain attempts to stem the drifts.
Some of the down-at-heel buses were marketed as holiday bungalows(Image: Mirrorpix)
‘Slum clearances’
Sand wasn’t the only threat. By the mid 1950s, local district councils were losing patience with the “very unsightly development” that “spoils the look of the coast”. Sanitation was also a major worry.
Discussions began over the compulsory purchase of the site’s “hutments” and other structures. Modern, better-serviced caravan sites were envisaged.
By the early 1960s, it was estimated the 3,000 chalets, caravans, buses, carriages and other structures covered 500 acres. “Slum clearances” began shortly after.
Permanent residents were offered new homes. Some appealed the process, seeking temporary planning extensions. All were rejected for fear it would set a precedent and compromise prime caravan development land.
Some were offered compensation, with the Prestatyn Weekly noting: “Merseysiders are predominant among the owners and occupiers, and removal of the chalets could create havoc among the holiday habits of thousands of people.”
Hidden Valley was swiftly levelled. It was partly occupied by a holiday camp called Morfa, some of whose initial owners had originally holidayed in the Warren’s “bungalows”. Today this is the five-star Talacre Beach Resort.
Elsewhere, there’s now a broad cycleway running through the Warren, reminiscent of the road that once served Hidden Valley. Here and there, bits of brick and timber poke from the ground as ghostly reminders of a community that vanished almost overnight.