A bare plaque with decorative scrolls has lain hidden in plain sight for decades alongside Llandudno Pier. Each year tens of thousands of people visit the Grade II*-listed pier without ever noticing the impressive edifice embedded in a seawall nearby.
It looks like a giant noticeboard of the type that might have once graced Victorian town halls. And indeed its purpose was promotional – an advertising space for local theatres, businesses and visiting steamers.
Interest in the abandoned concrete billboard was rekindled by recent photos taken from the pier. As funfair rides have been removed from the pier's boardwalk for winter maintenance, it’s only now that the concrete hoarding has again become visible to passersby.
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But for pier owner Adam Williams the space has been in his mind since he bought the site in 2015. “I’ve been thinking about what to do with it from day one,” he said. “I own the land it’s on – not a lot of people realise that. I’d like to start using it as an advertising space, the use for which it was originally intended.
“The adverts would have to be fitting for the area – a large modern advert wouldn’t be right. Perhaps we could promote events at the pier and, maybe one day, the old Pavilion site.
“I believe they used to lower men down on ropes to stand on planks so they could paste up the billboard. I’m not sure we’d be allowed to do that now! It’s on my wishlist - but unfortunately I’ve got a pretty big wishlist, so the idea will have to wait its turn.”
Postcards from the early 1940s show stylised versions of adverts that might have appeared on the pier-side billboard. Older residents in Llandudno recall those from the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company, which operated the TSS Mona’s Isle passenger vessel between Douglas and Llandudno. Her final trip, before going to scrap, was on August 27, 1980, shortly after appearing in the film Chariots of Fire.
It’s thought the billboard was still being used in the early 1980s to promote shows for tourists in Happy Valley, home to Llandudno's forgotten 'sunken palace'. Among the performers featured was the legendary Alex Munro, an RAF veteran who ran the Happy Valley open-air theatre for 30 summers.
He also managed the former Pavillion Theatre, which closed in 1984, two years before his death. After a six-year run as the Llandudno Dungeon, the once magnificent building became disused and in 1994 it was destroyed in an arson attack.
Until 1980 the theatre and pier sites were under the same ownership and by late 2021 they were again. Fearful of plans to erect flats, and so compromise the pier’s operations, Adam Williams and his Tir Prince Leisure Group swooped to snap up the now derelict site.
What to do with the site is another thing on his wishlist. “I’m still working on a few ideas,” he said. “The easiest thing to do would be to build a block of flats – but it’s the last thing I want to do.
“It would ruin the pier. I spent a lot of money opposing the previous plans for flats and making sure they didn’t happen.”
Currently his money is focused on the pier’s maintenance: it costs more than £250,000-a-year just to clear its pilings and struts. “We’ve been down there for more than three months, often at night and working with the tides,” said Adam, irked that grants are not available to ease the process.
“Every time you scratch the surface, you find something more. We still have a least four months more work to do down there, but it could be longer depending on what we find.”
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Until the work is finished, and costs are totted up, it’s difficult to prioritise other spending. Adam would certainly like to reopen the pier’s “rear entrance”, so providing a gateway to and from Happy Valley.
This would also chime with “aspirational” plans to redevelop the two-tier Colonnades just above the pier. Refurbishment work is needed first – but a vision put forward by consultants sees evening markets, street performances and even crazy golf as potential future uses.
Were this ever to happen, the pier’s billboards might once again be in demand by local businesses. “We’d need to reorganise the funfair rides so that people can see the advertising space,” said Adam. “At the moment it’s not very noticeable, which is why some people have forgotten about it.”
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