Its reputation ruined by Basil Fawlty, the ‘English Riviera’ has made a comeback

One of the many delights of a driving holiday in Devon, England’s fourth-largest county, is the wonderfully euphonic placenames. Villages like Ipplepen, Hatherleigh, Puddington and Lustleigh conjure up images of thatched cottages, Morris Men and cricket on the green.

Many of these settlements date back to Saxon times and no doubt sparked the prodigious imagination of Agatha Christie, Devon’s most famous daughter, who was born in the coastal honeypot of Torquay.

Indeed, the queen of murder-mystery writing is now an inescapable presence in this part of south-west England, eclipsing South Devon’s other major attractions: Dartmoor National Park, Buckfast Abbey, Kents Cavern, the South Devon Railway and, of course, cream teas.

“Welcome to Torquay – Birthplace of Agatha Christie” proclaims the town sign as you edge along the coastal road from Paignton, past grand Victorian hotels and Torquay’s famous red sand beaches and dramatic ochre cliffs.

Christie’s imposing family home on the banks of the River Dart, near Brixham, is now a shrine to the celebrated writer, who once called Greenway House “the loveliest place in the world”.

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Also somewhat obscured by the legend of Christie is Torquay’s claim to fame as Britain’s original staycation destination.

In the 19th century Torbay (comprising Torquay, Paignton and Brixham) was cleverly marketed to domestic holidaymakers as the “English Riviera”, and attracted a legion of well-heeled visitors, including Princess Victoria and various members of the European nobility such as the Romanovs.

“Torquay, with its pier and its diadem of white, is a most beautiful and very dazzling sight,” wrote Scottish poet William Topaz McGonagall. Vestiges of that former glory can be seen in the opulent hillside Georgian villas, whimsical pavilion, sprawling Oldway Mansion and Cockington Court, a 16th-century manor house set in manicured parkland.

With the decline of the English seaside holiday in the 1960s and 1970s, places like Torquay fell out of favour and the concept of an English Riviera became a running joke – especially for a certain fictional Torquay hotelier.

“May I ask, what you expected to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window?” rants Basil Fawlty to a guest who complains about her lacklustre view. “The Sydney Opera House perhaps? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically?”

While the location shots for Fawlty Towers , now regarded as a comic masterpiece, were recorded in Buckinghamshire not Devon, the series was inspired by Donald Sinclair, a former co-owner of the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay. The hotel was demolished in 2015.

The English Riviera is gently mocked by writers John Cleese and Connie Booth in Fawlty Towers for its provincial attitudes, snobbery and laughable cuisine (“We’re right out of Waldorfs,” says Basil when an American guest asks for his favourite salad).

Today’s visitor to Torquay might also struggle to find a single wildebeest running along the promenade but will be impressed by the number of huge cranes popping up around the picturesque harbour.