Description

TORQUAY

SX9263 BABBACOMBE ROAD
885-1/18/24 (North West side)
10/01/75 Torquay Museum

GV II

Museum. 1874-76 to the designs of William Harvey, contractor
EP Bovey; Pengelly Memorial Hall and alterations of 1894;
gallery addition opened 1928, to the designs of HC Powell,
contractors EP Bovey (Ellis, p.13). Local grey limestone
rubble with a crazed dressed face with fine joints, Bathstone
dressings; shallow pitched hipped slate roof; stacks with
shouldered chamfered stone shafts. Ruskinian Venetian Gothic
style.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. Symmetrical 5-bay front. Deep eaves with
stone bracketed cornice; plinth of squared masonry brought to
course; projecting strings, Bathstone bands. Moulded 3-centred
doorway with stiff-leaf carved capitals to the imposts and
carved roundels in the spandrels. Fine pair of iron gates with
wrought-iron scrolls on either side of the verticals above the
dog rail; standards with finials in imitation of Anglo-Saxon
beast ornament. Tall ground-floor windows in stone architraves
glazed with paired sashes (C20 glazing with timber glazing
bars). First-floor windows also paired but divided by shafts,
with stiff-leaf capitals. The windows are set in tall arched
recesses, the tympana brick, 2 of them filled with fine
terracotta relief panels; one shows botany, another shows
natural history. The other 3 were never filled, due to lack of
funds. The left return is in a similar style with one
ground-floor and 2 first-floor windows.
INTERIOR: Stair has attractive cast-iron balustrades;
stairwell has good hammerbeam roof on carved corbels. The main
gallery also has an open roof: arched braces on carved corbels
support a tie beam with queen and princess posts with curved
braces between. Upper tier of roof concealed by C20 flat
ceiling.
HISTORY: The museum was designed to house the Torquay Natural
History Society, founded 1844, which researched Kent's Cavern
and played an important part in the social history of Torquay
in the second half of the nineteenth century.
(Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Devon: London: 1952-1989:
P.854).

Listing NGR: SX9231463628

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Torquay Museum at Wikipedia
• Torquay Museum official website
• Wikidata Q26569246

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

• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)