Kevin Dixon: The park that gave us post-war reassurance

In 1924 Torquay County Council purchased land for a new park close to Torre Abbey.

It cost £40,000; today's value would be well over £3,000,000. This was Abbey Park, which was subsequently developed with an ornamental pond, tennis courts, putting greens and Italian-style gardens.

This remodelling of the Cary estate extended the tradition of Italianate influences in the resort. In homage to the Tuscan countryside, Torquay’s villas and hotels had been designed to look natural, lush, and spontaneous, and so it was also important that the surroundings of these buildings reinforced that intention.

A particular feature that so suited Torquay was the application of the style to our parks. These often needed to fit into small spaces, accommodate steep slopes or were tasked with transforming the resort’s rugged cliffs.

And so, at Abbey Park we have a geometric layout delineated by flower beds and walls, formal pathways, and balustrades adorned with urns. On several levels, terraces offer places to stand and enjoy the surrounding vista, as well as view the garden from above. Their purpose is to see and be seen.

We modelled Torquay on faraway places and the Italianate reinforced the impression that paying visitors were no longer in wet and windy England. The Bay’s microclimate had the further advantage of being able to nurture exotic plants to accentuate that sought-after Mediterranean ambience. On prominent display was that adopted emblem of Torquay, cordyline australis, the Torbay Palm, imported from Britain’s distant colony of New Zealand.

This new park was an exercise in nostalgia and reassurance after the war and the Spanish Flu pandemic. It would only later become evident that there would be no going back to the certainties of the nineteenth century.

An intriguing component of that inter-war construction, and part of that looking back, was a miniature ‘maze’ and rock garden.

It was in the late seventeenth century that hedge mazes became popular. The maze at Hampton Court inspired others and from the 1840s many gardens included a maze, either as a real challenge to navigational skills or as a symbolic labyrinth carved into a lawn. These were designed to be a puzzle, somewhere to get actually or metaphorically lost for a short while. Torquay’s maze is, on the other hand, small, easily negotiated and constructed on a slope. No one is going to lose themselves amongst its narrow winding paths.

Hence, although often referred to as a maze, what we are really looking at is a rock garden. By the early nineteenth century, there had been a change in the function of gardens. The idea that plants were put on the earth for the benefit of humans, either as food or as medicines, had been cast aside. Plants were now being utilised for educational and decorative purposes and their settings had evolved to communicate information about how the world was and how it should be. Following these imperatives came abundant commercial opportunities for local importers, explorers, travel agencies, hoteliers, market gardens, designers, and sales representatives.

As Torquay’s well-educated and affluent middle classes acquired more leisure time, they took part in plant-hunting, or ‘herborising expeditions. Wherever the Union flag flew or had influence, the offspring of the Empire searched for new plants and trees and brought them back to the Bay to study and display. And such ‘botanising’ was not confined to men. It was a healthy outdoor pursuit specifically recommended for women.

Of course, many imports died, but over time we found out how to cultivate these plants, information accumulating and spreading via newly established gardening magazines.

But while Torquay did use gardens and parks to promote itself in the same way as comparable Victorian towns, the Queen of the English Riviera was always much more than just another seaside resort. Torquay claimed to be the recreation epicentre of the largest empire in history, holding sway over 412 million people, 23 per cent of the world’s population. The resort was where the rulers and decision-makers of the British Empire, its dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and territories, chose for their vacations and retirement.

That being so, exotic species were used to reinforce Torquay’s carefully constructed self-image as a proudly international resort, a new kind of place located somewhere in a sunnier idealised and civilised Europe. Here was visual proof of far-reaching power. Torquay was the nation’s premier resort and so it had to consistently offer the most impressive and novel displays.

Torquay was furthermore older than many other resorts. The town’s origins were in the Grand Tour and the temporary confinement of aristocratic travellers to Britain during the Napoleonic Wars. One of their finest memories of the continent was of the romance of the mountains and so these affluent travellers replicated what they remembered from their extended journeys. A distinct enthusiasm then developed for the cultivation of alpine species.

Alpines, however, were a challenge to the grower’s skills and required particular care. Therefore, to provide appropriate growing conditions, specially designed gardens dedicated to their cultivation and display became common from the 1830s onwards.

Rocks were an important alpine type of setting and could be seen wherever a romantic or informal atmosphere was desired. The objective was to utilise levels as perspectives to transport the visitor to a wild mountainous landscape, with planting combinations designed to evoke nature. A small space, such as that at Abbey Park, could then be transformed to give the illusion of a much larger area. To make this possible, artificial rocks called ‘Pulhamite’ were available in a range of geological styles; though, of course, one resource that Torquay has in abundance is limestone.

For some species of plant import, rockeries offered more than a pleasing background. Rocks offered protection from the elements, and it is in shaded places that we can see the remnants of the Victorian craze for ferns. This was a flora that first appeared in the fossil record about 360 million years ago, and which is associated with fairies, magic, and the more primeval aspects of nature. From the 1830s onwards, ferneries became a common feature of gardens. Agatha Christie’s ‘Greenway’ being one example.

It was said that collecting and growing ferns was a particularly suitable hobby for Victorian women. Lacking conspicuous reproductive parts, their propagation could avoid awkward conversations about where babies came from.

In 1855 Torquay visitor Charles Kingsley coined the term ‘pteridomania’, meaning ‘Fern Madness’, an enthusiasm that spread throughout elite Victorian society and influenced the decorative arts, with fern designs appearing on textiles, wallpaper, ceramics, furniture, and cast-iron garden seats.

Ferns could also be brought into the house. In 1829 Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward invented a miniature indoor greenhouse to protect his fern collection from London’s air pollution. These soon became features of stylish drawing rooms and were later utilised for growing orchids. The Wardian Case was the forerunner to the modern terrarium.

2024 is the centenary of the creation of Abbey Gardens. It’s worth bearing in mind that this park played an important role in the development of Torquay as we know it today.