When we think of a Torquay stream the usual contenders are the Shire Brook which feeds into the King's Pond and, of course, the River Fleet, marked by Fleet Street which flows to the west side of…

Plans have just been submitted to convert the old Torquay Magistrates’ Court into ten residential apartments. Pre-Lockdown, there was a proposal to turn the building into a GP Surgery but that didn'…

  In 1724 Daniel Defoe wrote of Torbay: "In the Bottom of this Bay is a beautiful, well-built, and finely-situated House, call'd Torr-Abbey, formerly a Religious House; but now the Inheritanc…

Back in July of 1947 the Spectator Magazine’s James Pope Hennessy spent three days in Torquay… and he didn’t like it. Bear in mind that this was shortly after the end of the War; and that James seem…

    If we look at images from Victorian Torquay, it's noticeable that everyone wore a hat. And for much of the century men wore a specific hat, for all occasions, at any time of day. This was the t…

We have a couple of 1870 prints entitled 'The Strand';' and 'Torquay Morning Promenade in the Paignton Road'. Both these street scenes show women using hand muffs. As seen in these two images, a m…

This one is about the secret language of Torquay's promenading parasol. First, a definition. A parasol is not an umbrella. A parasol shades users from the sun; while an umbrella protects the user …

This is about Tuscan Torquay; and why we decided to build mock Italian church bell towers across our town. In 1862 Charles Dickens wrote, "Torquay is a pretty place... a mixture of Hastings and Tun…

 Just next to Torquay Police Station in Torre is an unusual four-storey building. This is the old Torre Conservative Club and it has an important place in Torquay's history.It was originally a Const…

  Sybil Fawlty really ran Fawlty Towers. She was a far more effective manager than her husband, handled crises calmly, and she knew that the hotel was there to generate an income, rather than to at…

Torbay's Heritage Interpretation Framework has just been published. 'A Haven Through Time’ uses the eight themes of the Heritage Strategy as a framework for organisations and individuals to interpre…

During the nineteenth century a few families transformed a collection of rural hamlets into the richest town in England. By the early twentieth century, however, the political and economic authority…

Torbay's hospitality industry has suffered due to the pandemic but now venues are about to open on June 21st and a very busy summer is expected.A familiar and much missed pre-Covid presence on our s…

Torquay has Jungle Journey Adventure Golf, Paignton has Pirates Bay Adventure Golf, and there's Crazy Golf at Goodrington. And, at one time, many hotels boasted a synthesis of concrete and felt whic…