Royal designer's Torquay home to become flats

Villa once owned by George V stamp man

Plans have been submitted to convert into flats the former home of an Australian sculptor who also specialised in the head of King George V. 

Sir Bertram MacKennal became a royal favourite in the 1910s when he modelled George V's image onto Indian rupees and British stamps. In 1911 he won the commission to design the George V commemorative medal ahead of the king's coronation. His work is still on display in the Houses of Parliament.

Sir Bertram's two-storey Torquay villa, called Watcombe Hall, thought to be early Victorian, has had an intriguing array of owners and uses, from silent-movie production company to mental hospital. 

The first recorded resident in 1851 was a retired army captain and his family. By the 1920s, minor silent film actor Dallas Cairns, most famed for his role as the man who received a tip-off about the gunpowder plot, had bought the house and tried his hand at making films from the English Riviera, with no notable record of success. It later became the home of Australian sculptor, Sir Bertram.  

The building was turned into a convalescent home in the 1960s, then was transferred to the Devon Partnership NHS Trust. In the 1990s, the property in Watcombe Beach Road, just off the main A379 Teignmouth Road, was a secure specialist unit for teenagers with mental health problems, rated 'inadequate' by government inspectors. It closed in 2007 and sold to a private healthcare company, reopening as a private hospital for women with learning disabilities or mental health needs. That business closed in September 2017 after a negative inspection report and was put up for sale earlier this year.

Now, less interestingly, an application has been made to turn it into eight flats and its annex into four terraced houses. Plans for the scheme have been submitted to Torbay Council on behalf of Plymouth-based KHP (Regent House) Ltd. A public consultation closes on 14 August, when Torbay Council planners will decide whether to bring down the curtain on Watcombe Hall and its intriguing history.

Watcombe Hall, Torquay (courtesy: Philip Bailey Architects)