Description

TORQUAY

SX9263 TORWOOD STREET
885-1/18/283 (South side)
23/05/73 Nos.3-21 (Odd)
Victorian Shopping Arcade
(Formerly Listed as:
TORWOOD STREET
Compass Club and Torquay Motors)

GV II

Designed as a theatre but never completed; in use as shopping
precinct. 1909-15. To designs of PR Wood. Bathstone ashlar;
roof concealed behind parapet; stacks with stone shafts with
moulded cornices. Neo-Baroque style.
PLAN: On a corner site, long side to Torwood Street, entrance
on return, facing up Torwood Street. Interior gutted for
shops.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. Grand symmetrical 1:5:1-bay elevation to
Torwood Street. Ground-floor bays divided by rusticated piers
with fascia and projecting cornice on brackets. Centre 5 bays
broken forward and divided, above ground floor, by giant
engaged Ionic columns with an entablature and dentil cornice
below the parapet. Large windows with moulded architraves and
overlights glazed with small panes. Recessed outer bays with
rusticated quoins. Round-headed windows have eared
architraves, moulded keystones and sill brackets; panels below
carved with names of Irving and Garrick. Statue groups of Fame
and Justice over outer bays. The entrance elevation on the
left return is 1:3:1 bays, the centre 3 bays, canted,
pedimented and broken forward on Doric columns, upper storey
divided by Ionic pilasters, relief of Neptune in pediment.
INTERIOR: Modernised.
(Buildings of England: Pevsner N and Cherry B: Devon: London:
1952-1989: P.856).

Listing NGR: SX9201463471

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26569193

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)