1906

1906 was the first year that Holiday Haunts was published, taking over from the somewhat wordily titled 'Great Western Railway - Farmhouse, Sea-Side and Country Lodging List' which had been published annually for the GWR by Walter Hill from as early as 1895. Holiday Haunts was an impressive publication and ran to 334 pages all for the princely sum of one old penny! The fussy covers were typical of the time - early GWR posters were also very cluttered & clumsy.

1909

1909 was a landmark year as it saw the introduction of the cover style which had been so successfully used on the Broadley books, and, whilst somewhat plain, it became the GWR's house style that they continued to use until the early 1920s. By now Holiday Haunts had expanded to 467 pages, together with an 80 page supplement on Southern Ireland and a 72 page supplement on Brittany.

1929

1929 was another landmark year as this was the first year that Holiday Haunts was published with full colour covers. Although the artist remained anonymous, the art deco influence is unmistakeable. According to Wilson, 1929 was one of the highest selling years with around 200,000 copies sold but, for some strange reason, along with 1930, it is one of the hardest years to find. Colour covers were to be used on all subsequent issues of Holiday Haunts, apart from 1940 when a monochrome photographic image was used instead.