Life in Torquay 100 years ago is to be the focus of an exciting new project organised by the Friends of Devon’s Archives (FODA). In association with the South West Heritage Trust and Devon History Society, FODA have been awarded a £5000 grant from the Torbay Local Heritage Small Grant Scheme to deliver the project. It is hoped that it will engage a wide range of local people from all age groups in developing and sharing their 1920s heritage and it will focus on three specific strands. The first strand will explore the last days of Captain Coxon Cary and his wife at Torre Abbey and the changes this brought to Torquay. It will investigate the development of new council housing on Cary land and the impact on slum areas such as Pimlico, scheduled for clearance in 1928. Finally it will investigate the ‘fun’ side of Torquay life in the 1920s (the ‘Roaring Twenties’) with dances, bands, jazz, music, café life and cinemas including the Lyceum Theatre.
To achieve this, the project will make use of the newly catalogued Cary archive, other local heritage material and the built environment. The Cary Archive is rich in architectural drawings and records including correspondence and property documents and will enable detailed exploration of subjects such as locally quarried building materials, fundamental to Torbay’s Geopark designation. The results will be presented in a number of ways including the creation of a series of heritage films with a local filmmaker that will be shown in a film festival in Spring 2025.
If you would like to be involved in this exciting new project and fancy delving into the records and learning new skills along the way please get in touch with the Project Administrator Abi Gray by emailing fodamembers@outlook.com.
The Cary Archive is held at the Devon Heritage Centre in Exeter. For information on visiting and viewing the archive, visit https://swheritage.org.uk/devon-archives/.
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