In Search of Old Torquay -To the Manor Born

This is the communal sitting room for some fabulous apartments in Lincombe Manor, a large Victorian house overlooking the bay, which has been sympathetically restored. Mrs Mover decided not to buy one as there was nowhere to put the vacuum cleaner.

It is a Grade II listed building built in 1862-4 and c1890 by JR Rowell for
Sir Lawrence Palk.
INTERIOR: The main entrance hall is a high 2-storey space with
a gallery around the first floor. An imperial staircase with a
5-light stained glass window at the landing contains the coats
of arms of the family. There is an ornamental stone fireplace
with a French Gothic hood to the ground floor of the hall and
similar fireplaces and overmantels exist in the other
principal ground-floor rooms, several being of an elaborate
Jacobean character. The dining room (former billiard room) at
the rear has an interesting barrel-vaulted ceiling with a
full-height hood over the fireplace in the eastern gable wall.
The original joinery and plasterwork is almost complete
throughout the house.
HISTORICAL NOTE: The Palk family were responsible for much of
the early development of Torquay during the first part of the
19th century, particularly the Lincombe and Warberry areas.
Sir Lawrence was a major benefactor to the town and later
became Baron Haldon of Haldon in April 1880. He died in 1883.
The house also has associations with Sir Francis
Layland-Barratt who purchased the manor in 1906. The manor is
now the centre for the Royal National Institution for the
Blind and is used as their national rehabilitation centre. A
number of alterations have been made to facilitate the use of
the building for this purpose, but these are of a minor nature
and it remains a remarkably unaltered example of a large
Victorian family house.
(Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Devon: London: 1952-1989:
P.860).

In recent years the house belonged to the Royal National Institute for the Blind and was a residential rehabilitation and training centre.