On January 18 1873 Edward Bulwer-Lytton died in his Torquay home Argyll Hall on Warren Road, having lived there since 1867.
Built in 1849, Argyll Hall became the Roseland Hotel and is now an apartment block called Marine Palms occupying a prominent position on Rock Walk.
Edward (1803-1873), was a hugely successful poet, playwright, and novelist. In [...]
Those of us that try and avoid the traffic on the Newton Road sometimes take the St Marychurch Road between Torquay and Newton Abbot. In doing so, we drive right through the centre of a series of earthworks.
These are what remains of Milber Iron Age Hill Fort, a site that was occupied between around 50BC [...]
Just by the roundabout at the top of Torquay’s Hamelin Way on the A380, at around 495 feet above sea level, is a small area called Gallows Gate.
As the name suggests, this was known as a place of public execution. Gallows were located at the edges of towns, by roads, or on hilltops, where [...]
Doesn’t it strike you as ironic that newspapers are teaming with critics of a modern age who bemoan the fact that fame today has become more about image and not substance, notoriety and not talent, yet become celebrities in their own right? If we disregard that hypocrisy, it is an interesting challenge to a society [...]
In August 1964 the Rolling Stones performed theatre concerts every day across the southwest, including Weymouth, Weston-super-Mare, Exeter, Plymouth, and Torquay.
For 5 days the Stones used the Grand Hotel as a base. Originally, they were going to stay at the Queens Hotel, but, on police advice, this was changed to the Grand. The idea was [...]
You would be forgiven for assuming that Torbay’s only claim to literary fame rests with one woman. After all, her influence, arguably, extends beyond that of any other modern writer – she is the world’s bestselling author having sold upwards of four billion novels worldwide and she characterised a period in British writing which infatuated [...]
Arnold Ridley was an actor, writer, and a Torquay schoolmaster. However, he is probably best known for his role as Private Charles Godfrey in the 80 episodes of the TV series Dad’s Army which ran from 1968 to 1977.
Ironically, Arnold played the only conscientious objector in the Home Guard platoon of Walmington-on-Sea:
Yet, Arnold fought for [...]
At one time Torquay had seven cinemas.
The Empire Cinedrome in Victoria Rd, Ellacombe, offered ‘cinematograph entertainment’ between 1912-1959. It operated again between 1962-1963 as ‘a cinema showing continental films’. In the mid-60s it was The Empire Ballroom – Torquay’s first disco. Then it successively became The Scotch Club, Tiffs in Town in the early 70s, [...]
Mods were known for their devotion to fashion, music and scooters. However, Mods with less disposable income often resorted to practical clothing that suited their lifestyle: boots, jeans and T-shirts.
It’s said that, in around 1965, a spilt developed between the peacock, or smooth, Mods and the hard Mods. The hard Mods could be identified by [...]
‘Vegetarianism: a modern term, employed to designate the view that man… ought to subsist on the direct productions of the vegetable kingdom and totally abstain from flesh and blood.’ The Oxford English Dictionary 1851
During the nineteenth century, England was home to a committed and active vegetarian movement, the most prominent advocate being the poet Percy [...]
Sexual intercourse began In nineteen sixty-three (Which was rather late for me) Between the end of the Chatterley ban And the Beatles’ first LP – Philip Larkin
Stephen Ward (1912-1963) was the son of Arthur Evelyn Ward, Canon of Rochester Cathedral. He was educated at London’s Highgate School, and in 1920 the family moved to Torquay [...]
An Edwardian filthy picture postcard
In early 1914 a ‘Big Meeting of Men’ was held in Torquay Town Hall by the Young Men’s Christian Association.
800 men attended to hear a series of speakers, and singing was led by the Free Mission Silver Band. The primary aim of the meeting was to warn Torquay’s young [...]
The Rising Sun in Belgrave Road, now the Old Mill
The social upheavals of the sixties saw the emergence of a worldwide youth culture which rejected the money, power and status that defined the value system of its parents’ generation.
The ’60s also saw the rejection by some of traditional Christian religious ideas, leading to the introduction [...]
Chartism was a movement for political and social reform between 1838 and 1850. It took its name from the People’s Charter of 1838, which stipulated six main aims:
A vote for every man over twenty-one years of age; a secret ballot; no property qualification for members of Parliament so anyone could be an MP; payment of [...]
The Community Charge, also known as the Poll Tax, was a system of local taxation introduced in 1990. A flat rate tax on every adult, it replaced the system of rates which was based on the estimated price of a house.
Many people thought this was unfair as they believed that it shifted the tax burden [...]
Torquay’s RA Records produced a number of singles and albums in the early ’70s. RA’s Studios later became Swan Street Studios, now lost beneath Fleet Walk.
Among them was a 1973 album by Steptoe & Sons’ Harry H Corbett, ‘Only Authorised Employees to Break Bottles: Harry H Corbett sings a collection of songs from all over [...]
Familiar to Victorian visitors was the Marine Spa, a monument of grand architecture built in 1857. Visitors flocked to hear readings by authors such as Charles Dickens or for exotic treatments called the Four Cell Schnee Bath and the cure-all Dartmoor Peat Pack.
Yet, times moved on and – after a tragic swimming fatality – the [...]
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was one of the most well-known personalities of his day, regarded for his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and sparkling conversation.
He became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era with a series of social satires, such as The Importance of Being Earnest. However, it was his only novel, The [...]
In the early 1960s Torquay had a flourishing Beatnik and Folk scene. Donavon, Mac Macleod (‘the Hurdy Gurdy Man’), and John Renbourne of Pentangle all lived in the town. Indeed, Donavon wrote’ Catch the Wind’ in Torquay.
For many, however, the optimism of the early sixties gave way to despair, imprisonment and loss of life as [...]
At a time when benefit cuts for the unemployed are being implemented, it’s worth noting that the final resort of desperate women remains the selling of themselves.
Torquay has always had its prostitutes. In the 19th century the town was described as the wealthiest in England for its size, and the affluent needed a large servile [...]
Torquay’s Pimlico in around 1900
“The majority in the world are sinners, and are quite against goodness, and I’m afraid it’s the same in Torquay”, Evangeline Booth
“Ten pounds to the man who will quiet her”, a Torquay hotel proprietor
During 1888, Torquay experienced a sustained challenge to established authority. Bizarrely, this followed the arrival in [...]
Fawlty Towers was first broadcast on BBC2 in 1975. Though only twelve episodes were produced, the series was placed first in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000.
In just 1977 and 1978 alone, it was sold to 45 stations in 17 countries and was [...]
In the original script of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), George Lucas wrote the role of Indiana Jones’ father as a professor of medieval literature who cared more about looking for the Holy Grail than raising his son.
The role was written as ‘a crazy, eccentric’ professor, resembling Laurence Olivier, whose relationship with Indiana [...]
Aleister Crowley (1875 –1947), also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential mystic and magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema.
Widely seen as one of the most influential occultists of all time, he is known today for his magical writings.
Crowley was also a bisexual, recreational drug experimenter and [...]
In 1774 an Exeter printer called Andrew Brice wrote in his ‘Grand Gazetteer’ that “at Tor Kay is a village and an inn or two”.
Actually, there were five “houses of entertainment” servicing a population of around 500. They were licensed “for man and beast”, and they were:
The Bird in the Hand. The landlady, Betty Cole, [...]
Torquay’s first punk venue was the short-lived Gatsby’s New Wave Club in 1977 (now the EF Centre on Castle Road). Local punks could see bands such as Plummet Airline, Avent Gardener, Cherry Vanilla and, on November 16 1977, Sham 69 and Torquay’s Cane – originally The Kayo Punks. Ian Dury was booked though, I believe, [...]
During the early years of silent British cinema, Torbay was home to two production companies: ‘Raleigh-King Productions/Cairns Torquay Films’ and ‘Torquay and Paignton Photoplay Productions’.
Raleigh-King Productions was based at Watcombe Hall. It was established for actor, director, producer Dallas Cairns who was already making films at Ealing.
Two films were made in 1922, ‘Creation’ and ‘The [...]
William Topaz McGonagall (1825-1902) has been widely accepted as the worst poet in British history.
A self educated hand loom weaver from Dundee, he discovered his talent in 1877 and embarked upon a 25 year career as a working poet.
His most infamous poem was the ‘Tay Bridge Disaster’.
However, included in his collection of over 200 poems [...]
Torquay has long been the focus for the strange and mysterious. Here’s a few Halloween-related tales from the town.
First, from one of our most famous authors:
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was one of the Britain’s most popular writers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and [...]
Torbay locations were used in a number of television series in the sixties and seventies. Some were the outside broadcasts of variety shows, while others doubled for more exotic parts of the world, or even the future. Here are a few:
A number of scenes from Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969–73) were filmed in Torquay and [...]