On Monday 11th August 1930 Snowdon was scheduled to leave Llandudno (10.30am) for Beaumaris (11.45am), Bangor (12 noon), Menai Bridge (12.15pm) and Caernarvon (1pm – 3pm) with return to Menai Bridge (3.45pm), Bangor (4pm), Beaumaris (4.15pm) and Llandudno (5.30pm).
Snowdon carried first and second class passengers with the day trip return fare for the whole cruise second class pitched at 4/6, (£14.82 in today’s money) and first class 5/6 (£18.20 today).
Snowdon was built in 1892 for this route for the Snowdon Passenger Steamship Company. She was bought, together with the goodwill of the business, in 1899 by the Liverpool and North Wales Steamship Company who continued to run her mainly on this route although she did make appearances elsewhere including at Blackpool and Liverpool from time to time.
The timings of the Llandudno to Caernarvon route did not lend themselves to much demand for meals aboard and Snowdon’s facilities in that direction, although very well appointed for first class passengers, were very limited in capacity. This picture of the lounge and buffet shows sit down places at tables for just 12 diners. It also shows table decorations of what look like a couple of small Christmas trees. Flowers and plants as table decorations were common on the excursion steamers of yesteryear and I revived the tradition on KC when I ran her on the Medway and Thames.
Snowdon was sold for scrap in October 1931 and broken up at Port Glasgow. That’s like scrapping a paddle steamer built in 1981 today.
Kingswear Castle returned to service in 2023 after the first part of a major rebuild which is designed to set her up for the next 25 years running on the River Dart. The Paddle Steamer Kingswear Castle Trust is now fund raising for the second phase of the rebuild. You can read more about the rebuilds and how you can help if you can here.
John Megoran
This article was first published on 11th August 2021.
