The Hotel Valkyrie?

The hotels we’re all staying in are part of the mid to late 19th century remodelling of the Douglas seafront – when the old seafront was extended by a new seawall and promenade, with new hotels built between the old front and the prom. These hotels, mostly single-fronted, interspersed with double-fronted jobs were built singly, but all to the same style – bay-windowed, with dormers and all to the same height with matching string-course – in other words they look like one huge uniform terrace and give Douglas its distinctive seaward appearance. Peter Kelly gave us a fascinating insight into this, and other early tourist developments, in his talk today (there will be more from Peter in the podcast…)

Strand Street, the shopping street behind these hotels, is the former road across the top of the beach, now some distance inland.

Now there’s a lot of social history and fringe IA in this story alone – but there are some added core IA angles too, not least the story of HMS Valkyrie, one of the Navy’s land-based units from the 2nd World War. Valkyrie was mostly based in the old Douglas Head Hotel (see B&W pic below) up on the headland – but much of the accommodation was down on the prom – including some of the hotels we’re in, notably parts of what is now the Claremont (itself comprising about 8 of those small Victorian hotels knocked into one.

Where’s the IA angle? Well HMS Valkyrie was the Radar training station – and therefore uniquely important for the war-effort and, of course, the beginning of a new era in the transport industry. Officially it was a morse code training station, but the Radar dishes all over Douglas Head should have given the game away, and Douglas claims to be the first harbour in the world to be Radar-controlled. There’s a bit more on Valkyrie here.


Here's what the Douglas Head Hotel looks like today (now converted to apartments I think) - no radar now (though manx Radio is just behind and out of view - so there're still radio masts).