Category: Travel Writing

How to visit Barry Island, Wales, home to the famous Gavin and Stacey TV trail

Were you one of the 12 million last night?

That’s the number of people who watched the final ever episode of Gavin and Stacey, the TV comedy series set in South Wales.

I made my own pilgrimage to Barry Island back in November to visit the sites now associated with the popular TV sitcom.

Here’s a flavour of my feature:

Eh, what’s occurrin’?

Barry is a classic working-class resort, where miners from the South Wales Valleys would have spent their annual holiday.

During the Georgian era, it was a favoured destination among peers of the realm and it blossomed in the Edwardian era.

 In later years, it was home to a huge Butlins holiday camp, which has since disappeared.

But these days, the Welsh seaside town has been reborn as a place of pilgrimage for fans of the TV comedy series Gavin and Stacey, who revel in its kiss-me-quick kitsch.

Barry is not all funfairs and hangovers, however. A cluster of independent businesses is now attracting Cardiff hipsters to the seaside. Tidy!

Read the full feature via the iPaper, The seaside town that is Wales’ answer to Margate with TV tours.

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I visited the loneliest railway station in Britain. Here’s what I found.

All alone at Denton Station; image: Paul Cooper Photography WWW.PCOOPERPHOTO.COM.

To Denton, Greater Manchester, to ride the ghost train.

The station, located on the Stalybridge-Stockport line in Greater Manchester was last week named as the loneliest railway station in Britain — there’s just one return service per week.

I joined a handful of rail enthusiasts and insouciant day-trippers at the weekend to ride the cult service.

Here’s a taster of my feature.

The weekly train is known as a parliamentary service, a statutory requirement to avoid official procedures to terminate the service.

The line, dating from the mid 1800s, survived the Beeching Report of 1963, a series of cuts to restructure the then nationalised railway system.

But it was shunted into a railway siding after the re-routing of TransPennine Express in 1989.

All aboard the ghost train; image: Paul Cooper Photography WWW.PCOOPERPHOTO.COM.

“It provokes a lot of interest for railway nostalgia,” explains train guard Stephen Hughes.

“Passenger numbers are often boosted by regular rail-heritage events along the line.”

The next service departs in one week’s time.

Read the full article via Telegraph Travel, My trip to Denton, Britain’s loneliest railway station.

Liked this? Try also: Is Bangor, North Wales, really the worst seaside resort in Britain?

Is Bangor, North Wales, really the worts seaside resort in Great Britain?

Photos via Paul Cooper Photography

To Bangor, Wales, last week for a feature for Telegraph Travel.

The North Walian resort was voted the worst in Britain by readers of Which magazine but is it really so bad — or is the tag a complete misnomer?

Here’s a sample from my story:

For a vision of Bangor’s Victorian heyday, take a stroll down Bangor’s Garth Pier.

Designed as a promenading pier in 1896, the 1,500ft structure offers glimmering views across the Menai Straits to Beaumaris and to Telford’s historic Menai Suspension Bridge.

The Grade II-listed pier was named National Piers Society’s Pier of the Year in 2022, its 125th anniversary, and has survived trials from being threatened with demolition to terrible damage by the SS Christina cargo ship, which broke its moorings in 1914.

Read the full story via Telegraph Travel: Is Bangor really the worst seaside town in Britain?

Liked this? Try also: How to spend a weekend in Southport, Merseyside.

How to spend a Great British seaside weekend in Southport, Merseyside

To Southport, the Paris of Merseyside for my contribution from the Northwest to a summer series from Telegraph Travel about British seaside towns.

Here’s my take on Southport, including a visit to Southport Market [pictured above].

Southport feels like a resort waiting for something — and preferably not another Poundland.

“But exploring the backstreets offers its reward.

Personally, I could happily spend an afternoon mooching around the Victorian arcades with the twin-level Wayfarers Arcade, built in 1898, a study in wrought iron and glass.

Cambridge Arcade has been restored to its 1850s glory with a glass canopy now shielding local businesses, such as Mersey micropub, the Tap and Bottle.

A craft ale bar and bottle shop, the sign outside proclaims it ‘good enough for John Cooper Clarke and the guy from Countryfile (not John Craven)’.”

Read the full story via Telegraph Travel: Southport feels like a resort waiting for something to happen.

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