Presently there will be electric tramways at Torquay! Conceive it, all ye who know the town. Could there be anything more suicidal than to introduce such hustling methods into Lotos-land?
I observe that, according to a handbook advertising the attractions of Torquay, while its winters are mild, its summers are cool, and that “the maximum mean annual temperature is 56·7°, and the minimum 45°.” Also it appears that “the thermometer in the shade seldom rises to 70°.” I must, therefore, be mistaken in supposing that in August I have frequently observed it, in the Strand, and on the spot eloquently known as “the Gridiron,” to be twenty degrees higher, and the Lord only knows what phenomenal heights in the sun. Under the same extraordinary illusion, yucca, bamboo, palms, eucalyptus, and other tropical plants flourish in the beautiful rock-walks along the Torbay road, and the fuchsia grows in the likeness of trees.
There are many who think Torquay looks its best on moonlit summer nights, when the lights in hill-top villas seem to vie with the stars, and the search-lights of naval leviathans in the bay send inquisitive beams along the shore or, adventuring higher, surprise fair maids in their bedrooms and make them blush.
CHAPTER XVI
BRIXHAM—LANDING OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE
Along the curving shores you come, past Tor Abbey Sands, Livermead, and the little red knob of Corbyn’s Head, with a hole in the rock like an eye, to Paignton. The reason for Paignton’s modern existence as a populous seaside town is found in its excellent sands and safe bathing, Torquay itself lacking any but the most meagre foreshore, and the tides coming up to its sea-walls. The best feature of Paignton is, after all, an extraneous thing: the lovely view from it of Torquay. In the old days, when Paignton was merely a village of cob-built and thatched cottages, grouped at hazard round the large, ancient and beautiful church, it must have been well worthy an artist’s attention—but that day was long since done, and Paignton is now merely a modern town, built on a flat site, with a conventional pier, public gardens, and band stand, and a weird freak building on the edge of the sands, known as Redcliffe Towers, or sometimes as “Smith’s Folly”; the Colonel Smith who built it many years ago apparently taking as models for his eccentric residence the round tower of Windsor Castle and the would-be Oriental monstrosities of the Pavilion at Brighton. The result is that it looks a kind of poor relation of both.
Being a good deal more recent than Torquay, Paignton is not so stucco-smothered; and its villas and the buildings of its very busy and smart chief street are largely in brick and terra-cotta.
The exceptionally beautiful church, which, however, is sadly hidden away amid these later developments, is due to Paignton having been the site of a Bishop’s palace. A few ruins only of that palace remain, with a romantic-looking tower, in which according to a picturesque legend, Miles Coverdale translated the Bible.
At the secluded sands of Goodrington and Elbury Cove, that look perhaps their best from the trains that hurry by, the traveller bids farewell to the red rocks of Devon, and comes into the regions of limestone and slate. The way leads on to Brixham: the railway itself proceeding to Kingswear, opposite Dartmouth, and throwing off at “Churston Junction” a little two-mile branch to the heights above Brixham town. All day and every day a short train shuttlecocks those two miles, the engine pulling one way and pushing another. If there be any three persons better qualified above their fellows to speak of monotony, they must surely be the engine-driver, stoker, and guard of this train.