Jubilee Gardens Café Crazy Golf in Minehead

A look at the Crazy Golf course at the Jubilee Gardens Café in Minehead.

We played the Jubilee Gardens Café Crazy Golf in Minehead, Somerset on our holiday to the seaside resort last year.

Crazy Golf at the Jubilee Gardens Café in Minehead

Crazy Golf at the Jubilee Gardens Café in Minehead

The Crazy Golf course at the Jubilee Gardens Café on Minehead seafront was the 995th course visited, and 560th played, on our travels since September 2006.

Check out the Jubilee Cafe website for more information.

Crazy Golf at the Jubilee Gardens Café in Minehead

Playing the Crazy Golf course at the Jubilee Gardens Café in Minehead.

Crazy Golf at the Jubilee Gardens Café in Minehead

We had a holiday in Minehead, Somerset in June and visited three more miniature golf courses on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour.

Crazy Golf at the Jubilee Gardens Café in Minehead

The Crazy Golf course at the Jubilee Gardens Café on Minehead seafront was the 995th course visited, and 560th played, on our travels since September 2006.

Crazy Golf at the Jubilee Gardens Café in Minehead

Crazy Golf at the Jubilee Gardens Café in Minehead

Crazy Golf at the Jubilee Gardens Café in Minehead

Crazy Golf at the Jubilee Gardens Café in Minehead

Crazy Golf at the Jubilee Gardens Café in Minehead

Crazy Golf at the Jubilee Gardens Café in Minehead

Visit the Jubilee Cafe website for more information.

Scorecard from the Crazy Golf course at the Jubilee Gardens Café in Minehead

Jubilee Gardens Café Crazy Golf in Minehead

A look at the Crazy Golf course at the Jubilee Gardens Café in Minehead, Somerset.

Jubilee Gardens Café Crazy Golf in Minehead

The Crazy Golf course at the Jubilee Gardens Café on Minehead seafront was the 995th course visited, and 560th played, on our travels since September 2006.

Check out the Jubilee Cafe website for more information.

Putting Green at Blenheim Gardens in Minehead

Finding a Putting course at Blenheim Gardens in Minehead.

Look at those prices!

We had a holiday in Minehead, Somerset last month and visited three more miniature golf courses on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour. One of which was the 18-hole Putting Green at Blenheim Gardens.

Putting Green at Blenheim Gardens in Minehead

Putting Green at Blenheim Gardens in Minehead

Putting Green at Blenheim Gardens in Minehead

The grass Putting course at Blenheim Gardens in Minehead town centre was the 996th course visited since September 2006. It was pretty easy to find - once you spotted the brown tourist signs for it!

This way

That way

Follow the brown sign(s)

This way to the Putting Green

Adventure Golf at Butlin's Minehead

A look at the Pirate Falls Adventure Golf course at Butlin's Minehead.

Adventure Golf at Butlin's Minehead

We had a holiday in Minehead, Somerset last month and visited three more miniature golf courses on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour.

Adventure Golf at Butlin's Minehead

Pirate Falls Adventure Golf inside Butlin's Minehead holiday camp was the 994th course visited since September 2006.

Adventure Golf at Butlin's Minehead

Adventure Golf at Butlin's Minehead

Adventure Golf at Butlin's Minehead

Adventure Golf at Butlin's Minehead

Adventure Golf at Butlin's Minehead

Adventure Golf at Butlin's Minehead

Mini Golf in Minehead

We've just returned from a holiday in Minehead, Somerset and visited three more miniature golf courses on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour.

First up was the Pirate Falls Adventure Golf course inside Butlin's Minehead holiday camp.

Pirate Adventure Golf at Butlin's Minehead

Next up was the Mini Golf course at the Jubilee Gardens Cafe on the seafront.

Jubilee Gardens Crazy Golf in Minehead

Finally we took a look at the Putting course at Blenheim Gardens in the town centre after spotting a brown tourist sign for the course.

Putting course at Blenheim Gardens in Minehead

We've now been to 996 minigolf courses overall, with 951 of them being in the British Isles.

Monorail at Butlin's Minehead

A look at an old Butlins postcard from Minehead.

What a view of two monorails crossing above the swimming pool at Butlin's Minehead.

Butlin's Minehead - Monorail over Outdoor Swimming Pool by John Hinde Studios. Postally unused. Undated

My holidays at Butlin's

My parents met at the Butlin's holiday camp in Clacton-on-Sea in the 1970's. My family often went on holiday to the Butlin's holiday camp in Minehead. We also had one stay at the Bognor Regis and Ayr camps. I spent many summers in the 80's and 90's at the Barry Island Holiday Camp, itself a former Butlin's camp.

We used to ride the monorail at Butlin's Minehead all the time.

Riding the monorail with my brother Jon at Butlin's Somerwest World in Minehead

Monorails and Minigolf at Butlin's Minehead

A look back at the Monorails and Minigolf course at Butlin's Somerwest World holiday camp in Minehead.

My brother Christopher was recently looking through some old family photos and spotted this snap of us riding the monorail at Butlin's Minehead back in the early 90's.

Riding the Tango branded Monorail at Butlin's Minehead in the early 1990's

My family holidayed at the camp a number of times in the late 80's and early 90's and I've got brilliant memories of the monorail, funfair, laser tag and arcades there. It's little wonder that even now I'm such a big fan of the British seaside, monorails, crazy golf and video-games.

Emily and I also had one of our first holidays together at the camp in 2004 and we remember playing the Arnold Palmer Putting Course you can see in the postcard below. This card is from the time the camp was known as Butlin's Somerwest World from 1987 to 1999. Sadly we haven't got any photos of us from our pre-Crazy World of Minigolf Tour game on the course.

A Butlin's Holidays postcard of Somerwest World. Postally unused. Undated

While looking at the history of Butlin's for a feature in Picture Postcard Monthly to mark the 80th birthday of Butlin's in 2016 I found that the UK's first commercial monorail was opened at Butlin's Skegness in 1965! The Skegness holiday resort is the one remaining camp I haven't been to.

It's brilliant collecting old postcards of minigolf courses, monorails and holiday camps as they are superb pieces of social history, as well as bringing back some great memories.

Related blog posts:
- Butlin's
- Postcards

Link:
- Butlin's

Happy Birthday Butlin's!

Today marks the 80th birthday of Butlin's Holiday Camps. On the 11th April 1936 Billy Butlin opened his first camp in Skegness, Lincolnshire - and the business is still going strong today.

I love the British seaside with all its quirks, eccentricity and traditional entertainment. I grew up on holidays at Butlin's holiday camps in Minehead, Bognor Regis and Ayr - and spent many summers in the 80's and 90's at the Barry Island Holiday Camp which used to be a Butlin's camp.

I spent many great holidays at Butlin's Minehead. It was nice finding these badges at Hitchin Market recently

In fact my parents met at a Butlin's! At the Clacton-on-Sea camp way back in 1975 and this year they are celebrating their ruby wedding anniversary.

It's probably in no small part because of our childhood stays at holiday camps - and all the fun they had to offer - that Emily and I have spent the last ten years travelling around the UK coast on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour. We also visited Butlin's Minehead (formerly Somerwest World) on one of our first holidays together in 2004.

As well as being home to the first Butlin's holiday camp, Skegness is also the site of England's first Crazy Golf course.
It opened in 1926

Over the years we've built up a great collection of miniature golf postcards, and we always keep an eye out for Butlin's cards. They're such colourful and fun cards, and seeing the monorail at Minehead brings back so many happy memories.

Within our postcard collection we've got a great selection of old and new Butlin's postcards. The images on the classic John Hinde are fantastic and it's been great to receive cards from our family when they've been to the camps in recent years. The oldest Butlin's card we have was posted on the 4th June 1951. It shows the Putting Green at Butlin's Luxury Holiday Camp in Pwllheli, Wales

Look at the size of the golf ball on the tee at the Butlin's Putting Greens. The monorails were marvellous too

Last summer we visited Skegness, and while we've not been inside that camp (yet) our friend Peter Jones was coincidently there at the same time for a Five Star concert and managed to buy me a stack of great badges for my collection.

Good luck to Butlin's and all the best for the next 80 years...

Links:
- Butlin's
- Butlin's blog
- John Hinde postcards

Related blog posts:
- Crazy World of Minigolf Tour
- Postcards

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Minehead & Southend on Sea - pre-Crazy World of Minigolf Tour course visits

The Crazy World of Minigolf Tour began on the 30th September 2006 and the Irregular Mini Golf Tour has grown alongside it. We've also been involved in British Minigolf Association competitions since 2007 and played in a WMF/EMF tournament in Finland in 2008.

However, before all this began Emily and I, like many other Brits, had been playing Crazy Golf and Minigolf since we were kids. One of our first holidays together was to Butlins Minehead in 2004 where we were to play the Arnold Palmer Putting Course there.

The pre-Crazy World of Minigolf Tour archives are very patchy, so results from the match-up are thin on the ground. All we remember is that there were no scorecards, it was £2.50 per player, and we were offered a second round for free, but didn't take up the offer as the course was in such poor shape!

Another, even earlier, pre-Crazy World of Minigolf Tour Minigolf visit was to the Aztec and Inca Adventure Golf courses at Adventure Island in Southend on Sea in 2003. Again, results of this contest are lost in the ether!

The Adventure Island course in Southend was the location for my BMGA Tour debut in 2007, at that year's BMGA British Masters tournament.