Plainmoor Centenary

Torquay United's first ever match at Plainmoor goes back as far as 5 December 1903 - a 7-1 win over Dartmouth.



Sam's right in that Plainmoor became Torquay Town's regular home when we merged with Ellacombe in 1910. The first game as a real home venue was 3 September 1910 - a 2-0 win over St Austell.

Of course, Ellacombe boys might trace the current club's lineage differently and come up with a different answer altogether!

................only as long as Terryl, Yellow and any other negative, destructive or other "ive" who cares to sit with them; are in their usual seats! ;D

That's not how my memory serves me, but what I Do have is a recollection of Don Mills telling me how the club had always been negatively treated whenever they sounded out the council on the prospects of turning that space into a floodlit training area. It would have been red shale in those days, and remember the swimming pool was unheard of then. In fact didn't "Swim Torquay" or whatever they were told get favourable consideration when that tiny little development was given the go ahead by the council who had a collective guilt conscience when the Marine Spa had to be blown up to retrieve the body of a little boy who had gone down the plughole at the town's only public swimming pool?

I remember Don putting forward the view that Torquay must have been the only town in the country where a professional football club that had derelict adjacent land available were treated this way and thus denied a training area adjacent to the ground......................even Exeter City had a couple of small areas bordering Sid James's (not the real one), but blue rinse Torquay was seemingly above all that and preferred the area to be a dog toilet. Certainly the pot holes and grass that was there where never fit for purpose as far as doing anything constructive in a sporting sense.

Even the old Cowshed that stood where the Family Stand now sits was just a corrugated iron and wood shanty affair, and the area at the back between it and the God awful perimeter wall constructed of that ugly pre fabricated concrete that still stands in the corner between there and Homelands Lane was just a sea of brambles and nettles.

When the first section of the old Mini Stand was given the go ahead, the club were told in no uncertain terms could they even think about extending that perimeter outwards to give a little more room, so they improvised and tarmacked it and had a hard suface ball court and weights room under the vestiges of the stand ~ all very primitive but it DID have it's own floodlighting and that is where Stefano and I learned our trade as wannabee professional footballers. Getting body checked into a wall during a 5-a-side on that, certainly taught one how to look after oneself and made playing on grass in a leafy field on a Saturday a piece of cake!

I think the green is still an eyesore to be honest, still a dog toilet; and the council should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for allowing that sort of image to exist right outside the town's only professional sporting arena. Visitors from all over the counntry see that. What image do they take away of the English Riviera from that? More like Soweto than Torbay and some of these idle councillors want to be taken up to Rochdale where they have transformed the environment outside Spotland(allowed to expand and incorporate previously neglected land) so that it is now an area of coummunity benefit instead of the fiefdom of anti social dog owners who foul it up.

Whilst we're at it the whole of Homelands Lane was an eyesore the last time I walked along it (last summer) and any pretensions of it being denied to the football club in favour of a "right of way" is a joke of Fawlty Towers proportions. Why it can't be built over and above is a nonsense, and again it resembled "Dog Shit Alley" last summer.

As I only arrived on the English Riviera in 1972, does anybody know* how Warberry Lane became Warborough Road and then Warbro Road in less than 100 years?

*Does anybody know...who am I kidding? Stand well back and avoid the rush as various explanations come flying in from all quarters! ;D

Good question. I don’t have the answer but will surmise.

Take a look at this 1809 Ordnance Survey map and you will see the road in question as being one of the few in the area at the time:



Considering the road leads in the direction of Warberry Hill it’s a fair bet that its’ traditional name was Warberry Lane. At the time, of course, what we now know as "the Warberries" was undeveloped. Look also at the map and see how various names are spelt differently compared to now: Antis Cove, Corbons Head, Ellicombe, Tor Abbey, Dazon, Upham, etc. That shows how spellings have evolved and I believe we’ve previously discussed the contrasting use of Lawes and Lowes Bridge in speech and print (why don’t we just call it Lors’ Bridge in honour of the great man? With an apostrophe or not?).

Now I’m betting that by the start of the 20th century there was increasing confusion between the now laid-out Warberries – of Higher, Lower and Middle fame – and dear old Warberry Lane. Checking back to my two maps it appears the change to Warborough took place between 1892 and c1914. Then, looking at another 1906 OS map, I see it’s already Warborough by then.

But why Warborough? The place in Oxfordshire – although it doesn’t appear to have a significant history – or a clumsy amalgamation of "Warberry" and "Borough" to celebrate the incorporation of St Marychurch and Babbacombe into Torquay? That was my first thought until I discovered Warborough Mount in the angle of what is now Quinta Road and Windsor Road. An “industrial and orphan home for girls”, located at a suitably safe distance from those lads at Brixham:



My theory is that the original spelling of Warborough Road was current until the Second World War – I wonder if Torquay United programmes and documents of the period confirm or contradict that? Certainly it still seems to have been in vogue at the time of the publication of the map below which I would put as the 1930s given the inclusion of the tram route (the dotted line along St Marychurch Road and Manor Road) and the cathedrals estate at the very top of the extract:



Why the later change to Warbro’? No idea, I’m afraid, although it could have been due to an informal abbreviating that started almost as soon as the road was renamed. How about confusion with Warborough Road in Churston? Unlikely as that might have not even existed at the time and would have been in a different council area. Either way, I’ve not seen a post-WW2 map with anything other than the current spelling. But, from a Torquay United perspective, it doesn't take an enormous leap in imagination to contend that we could have had a Borough Road End. Not quite the same as Babbacombe, eh?

Now had there been a similar publication to the Exeter Civic Society’s The Street Names of Exeter we would have our answer. My favourites from Exeter are the roads named after American astronauts in the Stoke Hill part of the city. The only problem was they called it Glen Walk (instead of Glenn) and Sheppard Road (rather than Shepard).

And, speaking of Exeter, there are two famous long-gone comedians/entertainers associated with the place. One lived in Ford Road; the other was born in Paul Street. Who were they?

Easy!

Where do you find this stuff, Mr G?

I guess there’s actually two bits of road. Were they built separately or at different times?

Firstly, the “back lane” for Derwent Road, the one which skirts the Ellacombe end green space - or shall we now call it Bronshill Fields? This effectively follows the line of the 1892 borough boundary. On the WW2 reconnaissance photo there's a relatively indistinct line.

Then there’s the turn-off from Bronshill Road which leads to the ground, a section of road we probably all use from time-to-time and hardly notice. It doesn’t have a name in my 1965 Kelly’s Directory but is now called Westlands Lane (which can only date from the merger of the two schools).

Kelly’s records the house between (what is now) Westlands Lane and Derwent Road as the home of the Rev John Burton, vicar of Christ Church, Ellacombe – the parsonage of 1906 or thereabouts. This is now Jubilee House care home, another landmark it’s easy to take for granted. I wonder what sort of support – moral, spiritual or otherwise – Rev Burton’s predecessors gave to the fledging TUFC? Certainly, without knowing it, the incumbent of the early 20th century helped the later development of Plainmoor with his new cut-through to Bronshill Fields. A house built in that space could have changed access and - who knows? - the whole configuration of the ground.

Your National Archives link opens up another world – the Iron Church; the Excelsior mineral water works and the Bounty of Queen Anne included. I shall arrive early at Plainmoor tomorrow for a closer inspection.