The Winter Gardens in Gt Yarmouth has been many things over the years from Austrian-style beer garden, complete with waitresses in Tyrolean costumes and orchestra to ballroom, a roller-skating ring, and an amusement arcade.  The latter sent a rainbow of colours from the multiple electric lights out through the glass walls illuminating seafront and beach.

This building was once described as a “seafront cathedral of light” by heritage experts.  Although the building began its life in Torquay in 1878 but its failure as a business venture led Great Yarmouth Borough Council to purchase it, dismantled and transported the whole structure across the country.  This Grade II*-listed landmark is UK’s last surviving Victorian seaside cast iron and glass winter gardens, but when it fell into disrepair it was added to another less promising list, one of the top ten most endangered buildings of the Victorian and Edwardian era.  Although its resurrection is well under way, it is currently being reimagined as a year-round visitor attraction.  If you are walking along Gt Yarmouth seafront have a look at this unique and amazing building the last of its kind, a seaside gem.