View of Douglas bay

Date(s): n.d.

Scope & Content: On the back of this photograph Frowde writes, 'Prior to demolition of Castle Tap - circa 1879 to 80. Falcon Cliff Pavilion not erected - Yes in picture. Large house and castellated stable still there on sea side of Crescent Road = 1878 JSK. Grand Hotel and Baths buildings erected - but no Walpole Avenue boarding houses. Old Pier Inn, in picture. Old Aquarium there where Clarke's Peveril House was later built, where the first School of Art (W F Merritt, master) was in my school days, and that would be about 1881 or 1882. It was still there as a 'show' of some sort in at earliest 1886 - or even 1889. Because Bertie had a ticket for admission of Mr & Mrs Hemensley - story'. Additional note: 'Steamer. Mona? by any chance. No photo of her so far as I know. Fenella 1882, (verify) and check details. Flag on for'ard mast has four-letter word, possibly ..... Two cargo derricks fore and aft, a stored foresail. Steam pipe aft of funnel. Prior to Victoria Pier extension, and filling in of angle in 1896 circ - but the presence of the Castle Tap and Skittle Alley gives the date as prior to 1880 or 1881. Ascertain date of building of Central Hotel. Louis Kelly, the builder, still alive and going strong in NS. 13.05.33 Was he the builder? Doubt it now. He was (1935 deed). The steamer is undoubtedly the Mona (II) built 1878, lost 1884. Fenella was built 1881; Peveril 1884. Compare deck fittings with early photos of Fenella, funnel of which was anyhow higher. The four letters of name on for'ard flag are clearly visible, though not decipherable with high power lens. The only picture of her in the SPCo books is from a painting and a poor one. The Falcon Cliff Pavilion was completed in 1884. Wood's of Reece's Billiard Saloon told me Spring '34 he started as a plumber early in 1884 and was on the Falcon Cliff Pavilion job as a junior, and that the Pavilion was finished and opened that year. To find the Castle Tap and the Falcon Cliff Pavilion in the same picture is something of a puzzle unless the Pavilion was some years in building. The Central Hotel was built by Louis Kelly by the end of 1880? Castle Tap disappearing, I think, about a year earlier. Louis Kelly died in New York towards Autumn (late) of 1934 aged about 84'.

Language: eng

Physical description: black & white print

Item name: photograph

Collection: Photographic Archive

Level: ITEM

ID number: PG/8224/18/24

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