1950s Torquay/Paignton street plan

Another gem I discovered in the Bere Alston bookshop today was an ancient coloured street plan of Torquay and Paignton. I remembered having one as a child – much scribbled over – but had began to think it a figment of my imagination as I never set eyes on another copy until finding one in Totnes a few years back. It’s unusual because most local street plans were simple black-and-white efforts. Geographia, the publishers, normally only produced coloured plans for the big urban areas.

Whilst the Totnes copy was in poor condition – and even more scribbled and felt-tipped marked than my original – today’s find is pristine. There’s no date but I would put it as mid-1950s on the basis of new housing in Chelston. It shows landmark pubs - such as the Haywain and Golden Butterfly – although Torquay’s fire station still in Market Street (isn’t that incredible to believe?). Indeed, John Pike’s centenary history of the borough states the new fire station on Newton Road didn't open until 1957.

What of the football ground in the first extract? No Drake Avenue or Frobisher Green on this map – can anybody shed any light on that old pitch? Pike reckons Armada Park dates from 1956.



Another sporting theme in the second extract – the Torbay Country Club golf course in Paignton. This is completely unknown to me – can anybody remember it?



Then, the part of the bay which has probably changed the most over the last fifty-odd years: the southern half of Paignton. There’s hardly any development there in the 1950s although there is sign of Standard Telephones. Oddly, over the weekend of the AFC Wimbledon FA Trophy game, I stayed in a B&B in Surrey run by the daughter of one of the first STC workers who moved down from the south-east. She recalled the building of Gibson Drive – known informally as “Siberia” – so I’m surprised the early part of the estate isn’t on the map:



Lastly, one for Budleigh, and it shows how the Borough of Torquay once had territorial ambitions towards annexing Shaldon. Not quite on the scale of Bolivia seeking a Pacific port but a definite sign of an intention to gain a foothold on the Teign (and why not?). All that was put to bed with the creation of the County Borough of Torbay in the late 1960s:



1950s cover design work with the inevitable palm trees and – yes – splendid use of Torquay United colours. Three maps for a fiver quite made my day.