HOMEFRONT MUSEUM LLANDUDNO
World War II Experience in Wales
Llandudno
on the coast of Northern Wales is best known as one of those grand Victorian
era seaside resorts discovered and built with the extension of
railways in the Industrial age when the wealthy and growing middle-class
found time to seek a little leisure from the smoke and haze of the cities.
The beach front promenade of Llandudno is lined with grand dame resort
hotels of old world
elegance perhaps 
a little past prime. A
Victorian Era shopping mall attracts the tourists to the sea shore with
a look back into the seminal
days of a resort town. The last surviving cable pulled street tram in Britain
(see Great Orme Tramway) trundles visitors up the to the Great Orme County Park
and its Bronze Age Copper mine and the panoramic view from the summit of
Great
Orme
Peak
of
the Welsh coast line and the estuary of Conwy (see Conwy
Castle). Perhaps the last thing
one expects to find in a North Wales resort town is a museum dedicated to
life at home during World War II.
The Home
Front Experience Museum is located on New Street on the west
side of Llandudno a few blocks from the lower station of the Great Orme
Tramway
and surrounded by blocks of family run bed & breakfasts catering to the
resort town’s summer season rush. A curious little space of a maze-like
collection of rooms which seem to be tucked into a former storefront, stuffed
with WWII memorabilia, forming living rooms where one listened to the nightly
war news on the radio with the family cat curled on the divan, kitchens,
police stations, civil service and shops representing life in
Britain
from 1939 to 1945, accompanied by the music and sounds of the daily wartime
life.
Upon entering, you’re handed a torch (flashlight) to light the dark
passages at blackout lights out curfew, coming in particularly handy for
the completely black Anderson Bomb Shelter. At the Imperial War Museum at
Duxford one of the ubiquitous corrugated arch mini-shelters is on display
behind Plexiglas (see Duxford
Air Museum)
but in Llandudno one can have the experience of sitting in the cramped darkness
of a bomb shelter surrounded by the sounds of
an air raid. On display, can be found ration books, gas masks and the posters
of cautions an the curious slogans and ideas which got England through a
war to victory at home.
The Home Front Museum is open from March to November 10-4:30pm Monday to Saturday and 11-3pm on Sunday. Admission is £3.25 for Adults, £2 for children, £3 for seniors. © Bargain Travel Europe
Compare best hotel deals in North Wales on TripAdvisor
Web Info
Home
Front Experience
These articles are copyrighted and the sole property of Bargain Travel Europe and WLPV, LLC. and may not be copied or reprinted without permission.
SEE ALSO:
PORTMEIRION VILLAGE AND GARDENS
BODELWYDDAN CASTLE - PORTRAITS AND GHOSTS
PLAS MAWR ELIZABETHAN TOWNHOUSE OF CONWY
