£3m price tag for beach landmark

Miners and steelworkers enjoyed subsidised breaks at Langland

A Victorian building that has dominated the seafront near Swansea for 150 years is for sale with a price tag of more than £3m.

Until last year the landmark operated as a convalescent home for members of the Club and Institute Union (CIU).

It provided subsidised breaks by the sea for generations of steelworkers, miners and members of other workingmen's clubs from across the UK.

The union has been forced to sell the building because of financial problems.

Competition from high street pub-chains and a shift to drinking at home during the week has led to a decline in traditional workingmen's clubs.

It's a fabulous building. It was a fantastic place to stay Ken Roberts, CIU

CIU south Wales branch secretary Ken Roberts said: "About 10 years ago the union had three of these homes - the one at Langland, one in the Kent area and one in north Yorkshire.

"Unfortunately because of our financial situation we've been forced to close two of the three - with the one in Langland closing last year."

He said since it was bought by the union in the 1920s, thousands of members with health problems would have stayed in the 45 bedrooms for breaks of between two weeks and a month.

Mr Roberts added: "The union has always been proud to have offered this service over the years - but unfortunately, to put it bluntly, it was not economical to run it any more.

"It's a fabulous building. It was a fantastic place to stay.

"On one visit there I remember reading a visitors' book which must have been kept for decades and looking at some of the comments - people thought it was brilliant.

Holiday Home

Mr Roberts said the numbers of the union's had declined over the years from 4,000 to nearly 2,500.

The house at Langland was built in the 1860s by south Wales industrialists the Crawshay family as a holiday home.

Estate agent Robert Cowley of Astley Samuel Leeder said: "What you see today is not what they built."

He said it was subsequently enlarged in the 1880s and used as a hotel before the CIU bought it in 1922.

Apart from a brief period during World War Two, when it was requisitioned as an annexe to Swansea Hospital, it was used by union members until last year.

Listed as a building of special architectural historic interest in 1989, Mr Cowley said it was suitable for use as a hotel, or subject to planning permission conversion into apartments.

"It would make a stunning hotel," he added.

"We have already had a lot of interest and we have not started marketing it nationally."