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The cholera outbreak of 1849 gave the town authorities a very rude
shock. By that time, they could see that the coming of the railways and
the influx of visitors was beginning to bring great prosperity to the town.
Their response was swift. They moved everyone out of Pimlico, Swan
Street and George Street (including the Stentiford family we wrote about
in Issue 16), pulled down the mean shacks and courts in which hundreds
of the poorest people lived and built a sort of temporary camp ground for them at Plainmoor, far away from the suburbs of the wealthy. They set up a Local Board of health in 1850 to take over the
provision of pure drinking water for the town - something that was badly
needed. When Robert and Elizabeth Stentiford
first went to live in Torquay, there were fewer than 900 people living
in the whole of Tormohun (Torquay's early name) - by 1851, there were
more than 11,500 permanent residents and far more at the height of the
season. Previously, in those early days, Robert and Elizabeth and the other Torquay
residents could rely on finding
pure water from the numerous springs which sprang up all over the area -
but by 1849, the building boom had caused these to become contaminated with sewage with dire results for those
living in the low-lying areas. |
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Elizabeth Barrett, the poet (who later married Robert
Browning, another poet), came to Torquay, with her favourite brother
Edward, for the sake of her health in 1838. Sadly, he drowned
while sailing in Babbacombe Bay in 1840 and a few months later, the
grieving Elizabeth went back to her family home in London. Occasionally
though,
poems by her were published in Torquay's local paper.
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"Sunny
Devon, moist with rills,
A nunnery
of cloistered hills,
The
elements presiding.
For here
all summers are comprised,
The nightly
frosts shrink exorcised
Before the
priestly moonshine.
And every
wind with stolid feet
In
wandering down the alleys sweet
Steps
lightly on the sunshine."
Miss Barrett
Torquay 1839 |
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An apt description of Torquay and its surrounds - a gentle climate bringing long hours of
sunshine, pure water piped down from Dartmoor, Italianate villas on
large plots, plenty of locals to provide services and work as servants -
and above all, a very well-organised social life. Those listings of residents
in the paper every Friday triggered off the rounds of calling, leaving
cards, giving and accepting invitations, meeting at concerts, balls,
lectures and the clubs that formed the structure of 19th century
upper-class life. The town was busy all year round - the delicate came to
over-winter, others came to recuperate from the excesses of the London
Season, the famous came for a more secluded lifestyle and a few came
because of the scenic beauty and natural interest of the place. The
place was
perfect of its kind.
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At least that is what one Italian thought. His
name was Joseph Marchetti and he was born in Carrera in Italy around
1800. We know
little about him except that he must, at some point in his life, have
visited Vomero Hill in Naples and seen the famous view of the Bay from
that point.
The 1841 Census shows him living in one of the most beautiful of all
of Torquay's villas and, presumably it was his idea to call it The
Vomero, probably because the view reminded him of that other place so
far away. In one sense, it became his home. But it was home to others
too, for Joseph and his wife Mary, who came from Ashburton, turned it
into a hotel of a very special kind. No mass market for them, even if
the clients were of the "right" class - The Vomero was
expensive and exclusive, catering only for one or two titled families at any one
time. |
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The Vomero,
Torquay
Built in 1838
Courtesy J. R.
Wilson |
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