Plans have been submitted to redevelop the former Howstrake holiday camp in Onchan.
Allprop Ltd has applied for approval in principle for a house with staff and office accommodation.
The site has lain empty since the early 1970s. Since then failed redevelopment plans have included 200 homes, and a hotel plus 200 residential units.
The planning statement says ‘it is intended that proposed buildings will be of a residential scale and will take their cue from the scale of previous buildings on the site’.
It continues a subsequent detailed planning application would be likely to include seven ensuite bedrooms, wine cave, bar, cinema, games room, indoor pool, gym and staff flats. Outside, would see proposals for a wintergarden and orangery, walled kitchen garden and a putting green and golf driving net.
Local historian Peter Kelly explained Douglas Bay Estate Co decided to open a 50 acre park on the opposite headland to Groudle following the opening of the electric railway to Groudle in 1893 and the glen’s subsequent success.
The park opened for the seasons of 1895 and 1896 but it wasn’t a success.
Joseph Cunningham, from Liverpool, rented the site in 1897, setting up the first commercial holiday camp in Great Britain. Utilising the kitchen and dining room, he then added bell tents which saw four lads to a tent, sleeping on beds and each tent having a wooden floor. He ran it until the 1904 season when he opened up in Douglas instead.
The site lay vacant until 1910 when the Howstrake Holiday Camp Co Ltd was formed and ran the establishment until 1972. The camp then lay empty until a fire in 1980 destroyed a great part of it.’
