A chilly look back to Torquay in 1963

Continuing with last week’s snowy theme, this week we’re sharing a nostalgic photograph of Torquay Harbour from the winter of 1963.

We’re delighted to publish this image, made possible through our new partnership with Torquay Museum.

When we recently shared the 1969 photo of Barton Hill Road, we explored how it sparked a discussion about whether it was actually taken during the winter of 1963, famously remembered as the time of the Big Freeze.

According to local history expert Graham Wheatley, a top contributor to the Facebook group Undiscovered Torbay, the Big Freeze of 1963 began for Torquay when snow first started to settle on Boxing Day, 1962. On December 29 and 30, a blizzard swept across the southwest counties.

On December 29 and 30, a blizzard then swept across the southwest counties. 

Graham writes: “It went on to become a winter to stay in the memory of anyone who experienced it, as January 1963 became the coldest January across many parts of Britain since 1814.

“Pedestrians, slipping and sliding their way over the pavements of Fleet Street and Union Street, became a familiar sight.”

The comment section is divided between firsthand and second-hand accounts of this period.

David Cheesman, disappointed at being too young to remember the event, says: "My father often talks about it at this time of year. It was a couple of years before I was born, unfortunately."

Meanwhile, describing a journey to work, Mike Jones recalls: “I remember travelling from Paignton to Torquay by bus, and the bus got stuck near the rugby ground. I walked the rest of the way to work on Torwood Street to find that most of my fellow workers living in Torquay had not managed to get to work. The boss then appeared and told the few of us there that we could go home!”

A child at the time, Kevin Coughlan constructs an unbelievable image of the occasion, adding: “There were snowdrifts all about the next morning, and we went tobogganing down the slopes on either side of the cricket square at Walls Hill. I remember the ice and snow being melted in saucepans on the stove because all the pipes froze. It was a week or two before we persuaded parents to take us out to Dartmoor. And the snowman we built in the garden didn't melt fully until March.”

Despite what was clearly an unprecedented period of discomfort and disruption, this photo from Torquay Museum’s digital archives of an unnamed man feeding gulls by the harbour captures a moment of simplicity among the chaos.

It also bears a striking resemblance to the harbour front of today, taken from an angle that highlights a near-identical railing while disguising the recently extended promenade and new seating flowerbeds.

Above: Torquay Harbour December 2024

The photo has proved popular with locals, with Torquay Museum writing: “We have posted this photograph before, but we love it so much that we thought you might like to see it too!”

David Luscombe writes: “Last time I loved the photo, and it is amazing still in time,” while Jan Donnelly adds, presumably about the man rather than the seagull: Lovely. “Kind soul.”

Ian Cox jokes: “Particularly amazing when you realise that gull is still there.”

Reflecting on the history of the photo, Hedley Triggs says: “My dad did his apprenticeship in an architect's on the parade in the background. I think it was next to Forte's coffee house in the 50s."

Is there a period of history you’d like us to write about? Let us know at torbayweekly@clearskypublishing.co.uk.