WHEN and why did Teignmouth become a seaside resort?
Teignmouth and Shaldon Museum’s extensive summer exhibition at the Teign Heritage Centre tells the story of how visitors started to come to Teignmouth from the 1750s onward.
They came principally for health reasons, to feel revitalised by the fresh sea air and the new experience of drinking and bathing in the sea water.
This was very important for the development of the town.
Wealthy visitors in 1780s and 1790s came to the South West because they were unable to travel abroad during the wars in France and Italy.
At that time property owners and bankers of Teignmouth like Robert Jordan and Holland were crucially draining the marshes between and East and West Teignmouth to create a new town centre, which we are familiar with today.
Robert Jordan wrote: ‘people are building mad’ and as a result we still have elegant Regency crescents on the Den and villas on the slopes of the town.
The exhibition panels include many prints of that time, the original ‘postcards’ which visitors bought as a memento of their stay in Teignmouth. Several artists, including Turner and Thomas Luny, painted the local seaside scenes and these were copied by engravers and printed for sale in Croydon’s Public Library, (now WHSmith’s), in Exeter and London.
With the influx of visitors during the winter as well as the summer, many tradespeople came to live and work in Teignmouth, as well as some famous residents, such as retired Admirals.
There was a rapid growth in the population which doubled from over 2,000 in 1801 to over 4,000 in 1831. Museum volunteers will be having some fun dressing up in Regency costumes to take part in Teignmouth’s Carnival Procession, where Jane Austen’s Mr Darcy may be spotted!
But there is no certainty that Jane Austen visited Teignmouth – just a belief that she stayed in rooms at ‘Bella Vista’ on the sea front.
Research for the exhibition has been carried out by local art historian Dr. Chris Davies and volunteer Curator Lin Watson and Archivist Jo Hyde.
They acknowledge support from Devon C.C. Locality Budget, via Cllr. David Cox, and from Devon Heritage Centre, Exeter Museum and the National Gallery.
The display will be open to visitors all the summer till the beginning of September from Tuesday to Saturday, 10.30am to 4pm