Hidden History At Dawlish Warren: A Hotels Past & 1955 Fire - 23/04/26

追加: 2026-05-07

[00:00:03]Hello again. Welcome to take two.

[00:00:05]Hopefully the train will be running today and I'll do what I wanted to do yesterday today. Got a lovely walk planned. Smash in. Let's get some tickets.

[00:00:18]Not mine. It would be rude not to film it, wouldn't it?

[00:00:25]Wouldn't it be nice if we still had the signal box over there, but that's long gone.

[00:00:47]The train, however, remains. We still have trains, so all good.

[00:01:05]And hopefully the next train in the opposite direction is mine.

[00:01:22]>> Lovely.

[00:01:36]comes right to me. That's good.

[00:01:42]>> Dirty windows.

[00:01:43]>> This is a Great Western.

[00:01:46]>> And there was a tooth then. I just about heard it.

[00:01:52]Salty dog, of course. There he is.

[00:01:57]And of course, just cuz we're not getting off at Dorish today, doesn't mean to say I shouldn't film a view from the train. See what's appertaining.

[00:02:06]Spooky house. Scary.

[00:02:10]Palmc court nursing.

[00:02:14]Up on the ruin tavern. There we are.

[00:02:15]Still on the steps there. Glenheim.

[00:02:21]Woo. Looks a bit less work going on. Bit more back to normal at the Gulf. Touch plot. No sign of the signets from here.

[00:02:30]And of course, no Andy cuz I'm not getting off here. Lovely. Dish.

[00:02:36]Our first glimpse of the Warren through the dirty window.

[00:02:41]There we go. But we're not going this side today. We're going to be up the other side. And uh I'll explain that more when I've met Andy. got miked up and got ready to go. Lovely.

[00:03:00]There he goes on his way. I'm out with Andy. Going to get miked up. Smash in.

[00:03:09]Right. So, we're coming out of the station. Now, normally, as you know, we take a left, but today we're not going to carry on this way because what we're doing today is we're concentrating on the accommodation side of the Warren.

[00:03:22]And some of it is pricey, as you know, and some of it is less pricey. But if you've been around in 1965 and you're an art student at a exit college, you could have stayed here quite cheaply. Here we go. Look at that. That's one way to do it, isn't it?

[00:03:37]>> Can't blame them.

[00:03:39]>> No.

[00:03:39]>> Lovely and rustic. Chances are that would be wouldn't be allowed these days, but it was allowed back then.

[00:03:44]>> It was allowed back then. Yes. And that's the interesting thing of it. What was allowed then and worked then is not allowed today.

[00:03:53]And while, as I said, we're not going to be going over to the beach side. Here's a lovely generic four square postcard sent in by Jane. Thank you, Jane. Look at that. Four different shots of the Warren smash in. What a lovely postcard.

[00:04:10]>> How lovely. And while we're on the subject of uh postcards and dear old England where we are today and maybe not for you today, but for us, it is St. George's Day today. So, >> yay.

[00:04:23]>> Those of our English contingent, happy St. George's Day.

[00:04:26]>> Yes.

[00:04:28]>> As we walk along, Andy's noticed there the car. And that is the modern equivalent of a Ford Capri.

[00:04:33]>> And actually, would you believe it or not, looking at it, it's electric. It's an electric Ford Capri.

[00:04:40]>> Not quite the same as their Ford Capri >> that we used to know.

[00:04:44]>> No, >> still got some of the shape there, but not the long big long nose that we used to have it.

[00:04:49]>> And I can remember them with great admiration. My friend had a 2.8 injection. And my word, that was a fast car.

[00:04:57]>> There we are. Look, that's where we're going. The Langston Cliff Hotel to start off our little journey today. And as you can see, it does say >> open to non-residents. So, no one can tell us to get out >> while we're going through everyone's room that they've paid to stay in and flying out the windows and >> not exactly going in the place, but we're going to do most of our stuff from the outside of it. And and that's the interest of it. There's a lot of interesting facts to tell on this today.

[00:05:22]And actually, one good surprising fact, but we'll save that until we get up there.

[00:05:28]175.

[00:05:31]Can't let that go without a ship filming it.

[00:05:35]Here we go. Normally we're looking across from that side over there by buddies and saying, "Oh, look up here.

[00:05:40]This is Langston Cliff." But today we're here.

[00:05:45]>> We are here.

[00:05:46]>> Smash in.

[00:05:48]Let's go in.

[00:05:50]>> Yeah. So, what we're looking at now is the site was sort of originally known as the Langston Cliff Cottage, which was associated with the family of George Washington through the owners of Mr. Mrs. Avant Washington.

[00:06:04]>> So, we've got a presidential connection.

[00:06:07]>> We have got the a presidential connection. And it's really quite interesting to think that I think it's like a small world that we live in that this place is got a connection to the one of the presidents of the United States.

[00:06:21]>> Yeah. Crazy, isn't it? Crazy.

[00:06:25]Now, that swimming pool or the area of the swimming pool will appear in the first extra photo I'm calling it because I've got a sequence of photos that are all part of the same set. But the two extra photos are from I believe the 1950s.

[00:06:39]And uh I'm not going to say let me line this up because I'm sure you'll work it out yourself. But round about here, I believe round about here. Here we go. First one from the 1950s.

[00:06:52]See the coastline the same in the corner down there and obviously where the pool comes into it. Smash in. Now I am going to go and line up the second one from the 50s and do that properly. That's just up the other side. Purchased by the Rogers family in 1946. It was converted from a private residence to a hotel and officially opened its doors in April 1947 with 12 guest bedrooms. Let's jump into another 1950s shot, shall we? As you can see, the top floor there, isn't it? Here we go. That's quite recognizable. The same decorative iron work on the ver.

[00:07:33]>> Yes. And that would have been part of the expansion which was done in the 1950s and I think 1958 with the annex on the side there.

[00:07:41]>> Well, there we are. That that 1958 that dates these two extra photos. But the ones we're going to talk about now are official publicity shots from the 1920s.

[00:07:51]Let me try and line up. It's our first official one again, I believe, from the 1920s.

[00:07:55]>> Yeah, >> there we are.

[00:07:57]>> And it's showing the front entrance and what is still there today, which is a like a little ornamental pond. And they called it the lily pond.

[00:08:05]>> Smashing. So, there he is over there >> in the center.

[00:08:08]>> In the center. Yeah, >> that's a lily pond. Let's go and see it.

[00:08:11]>> That's the lily pond.

[00:08:12]>> Again, not exactly lined up, but near enough. Here we go.

[00:08:16]That's the view down it says from the front door roughly where we are now looking down showing the excliffs.

[00:08:22]>> Yeah.

[00:08:24]And while Bill's focused on the pool which is just underneath there in the 1980s well in fact 1980 a modern uh indoor pool was built to the complex >> and you can in fact come along here as a non- guest and pay to use their pool.

[00:08:40]>> Yes. And we've just discovered that it's on the Ringo app. But as Bill was talking to me off camera, you don't actually pay for it. You just register your car with reception.

[00:08:49]>> That's if you're using >> the facilities.

[00:08:53]>> Obviously, this is the ver and it's a little bit awkward to film too close to it because I'd be filming on guests in there as well.

[00:09:00]>> But uh there used to be a billyard table inside. Here we go. That's one of the pictures from inside back in the day.

[00:09:08]And a couple more photos. looking out, showing the uh the architecture of the windows. And there's another one.

[00:09:19]Lovely.

[00:09:22]And of course, back in the 1920s, they didn't have an elephant, but it's always important to have an elephant cuz elephants are cool.

[00:09:31]Yay, elephant. Now, also inside you have obviously a dining room, which I believe will be over there. Now, here's a picture of in the 1920s. Can't really go in and match that one up, though.

[00:09:43]Lovely little lily pond fountain.

[00:09:46]Smashing.

[00:09:47]>> How tranquil that is.

[00:09:48]>> Yeah. And also, if you were to go in, which we're not doing today, you would see this in the 1920s. There you are.

[00:09:55]That's the main hall with what it looked like back then.

[00:09:59]>> And the interesting thing about this hotel is that it's been in the same family ownership from day one.

[00:10:07]So, that's something to behold today.

[00:10:10]>> And there we are. There is the Washington Street suite that we were talking about earlier on.

[00:10:15]>> Actually, uh, proving that it was part of the Washington family. Smashing.

[00:10:22]And we got one final photo for you from the 1920s collection. Here we go. I marked this one myself as on the way out because it's the last one we're doing as we walk out the hotel and it's also on the way out of the hotel itself. Smash in. Hope you enjoyed those little set of photos.

[00:10:42]>> And what a beautiful place to stay and look at look at the setting. Yes, even going away from those pictures when you come afterwards. Look at your view. It's absolutely unspoiled. It's beautiful.

[00:10:52]You could be anywhere in the world to be fair.

[00:10:54]>> You can even see the trains. You can.

[00:10:57]>> Lovely. Right, we're going to crack onto our next porter call. So, we're going to go out onto the main road now.

[00:11:02]>> And there's a train.

[00:11:03]>> And talking of a train. Yes, there it is. Right on queue.

[00:11:13]>> As we leave, even not got like a lovely little woodland walk there.

[00:11:17]>> A lovely woodland walk. How lovely is that? And I presume that must lead on to the path which we came from earlier on.

[00:11:23]>> Just noticed this on the way out. that's being used as a mirror. And uh Andy says the tires are holding up from a racing car. And I'm thinking to myself, they must have an incredibly big pinball machine here.

[00:11:36]>> They do. Look at that.

[00:11:40]>> It's the main drive out.

[00:11:42]Lovely.

[00:11:44]Really nice. There we go. We're going to leave the Langston Cliff now.

[00:11:50]>> Head out onto the one of the two exits.

[00:11:52]>> Yes.

[00:11:56]There's a number if you want to ring them up.

[00:11:59]>> And it's now got 64 bedrooms and free Wi-Fi, believe it or not.

[00:12:06]>> This is the Mount Pleasant Inn. Next stop on our little wonder today.

[00:12:10]>> Yes, the pub was established in 1799, emerging during the Regency period when tourism and infrastructure began to expand in the Dorish area.

[00:12:20]>> Now, we got some pictures, haven't we?

[00:12:22]>> We have.

[00:12:24]And some of them are from a fire.

[00:12:25]>> Yes. And the fire which we which we had at this premises and uh the fire which >> I would think was in August and 13th of August 1955.

[00:12:36]And the fire brigade had to be called just after 1 p.m. as a serious fire broke out at the Mount Pleasant Inn.

[00:12:42]They were seriously hampered by the lack of water pressure and the water had to be taken from a stream next to the Warren Beach.

[00:12:50]So, you've just seen some photos of it.

[00:12:53]Actually, if you want to click the link that's on the screen now, that'll take you directly to a video of it.

[00:12:59]>> Now, excellent.

[00:13:00]>> Another interesting thing that I'm going to chuck into this is that this place is haunted by a poltergeist, believe it or not.

[00:13:07]>> Oh, that's right.

[00:13:08]>> And the poltergeist is called the jarthrower.

[00:13:11]>> Yes.

[00:13:14]Crazy little seating area.

[00:13:16]>> Yes. This is quite pleasant. This is where you bring your well you come out here with your children >> and a nice little view of the warren itself which I'll zoom in on. Lovely.

[00:13:26]>> And this place is under new ownership at the moment and I think I have mentioned it before but apparently things are looking up here. It's quite good.

[00:13:34]>> So there it is just up here. We're not far off of the bottom of the road to be honest. And we're going to go down here, loop along, and just walk as far as a couple of the holiday camps for a couple of shots of those old brochers, etc. And why not? Here we are. This is the more common view, a little bit further down from where we were just now, next to Lee's Bar.

[00:13:58]>> Yes. And this bar that used to be beside us here, which the name fails me absolutely, which has now been closed quite a while. I can't think of the name of it, but it's somewhere we'll have the name up, I'm sure. And then of course in front of us down the bottom there is the bridge in which is up for sale at the moment.

[00:14:18]>> Talking of things up for sale, we've got a church for sale in Timmouth.

[00:14:22]>> Ah.

[00:14:22]>> Oh yeah. But I'll be I'll be covering that in a separate video where I can show you all the pictures from inside and everything.

[00:14:28]>> Interesting.

[00:14:28]>> And back along here we come again past the chip thief. Chippy.

[00:14:32]>> Yeah. which we did get some chips from one of our visits offse >> and the Dorish Warren pharmacy which my wife could probably get a job for and a Chinese.

[00:14:50]>> Yes, the Wooi.

[00:14:51]>> Just going to keep wandering down here a little bit towards the welcome and the Golden Sands.

[00:14:58]>> Yes.

[00:14:59]And you can say, well, or you can see the holiday season is well in uh full flow now because the last time we came down here, there wasn't all these colored items and everything up for sale.

[00:15:11]>> Load of balls.

[00:15:12]>> There's a load of balls.

[00:15:13]>> Now, over there is Welcome Holiday Park, which I know a lot of you stay at when you come down.

[00:15:18]>> Yeah.

[00:15:19]>> Here it is in the 50s when it was called >> Welcome Stranger. So, totally different to what it is today, but yes, it's called the Welcome Holiday Park now. And it was very very popular back in the 50s as well. So >> I know Graeme stayed there. Hello Graeme. He stayed there when it was a welcome stranger. Yeah. And a few other people have mentioned it.

[00:15:37]>> And this was one is actually featured on channel 5 as well.

[00:15:41]>> And here it is from 2001 brochure. There we are. That's 2001 from Jane when it became the welcome. Well, it become in 2001 but when it was the welcome back then. And this is it in present day. So there we go. Welcome Holiday Park. All along here, absolutely lovely. And just over there, we got the Golden Sands.

[00:16:05]Nothing to line up really with this one for Golden Sands.

[00:16:08]That's what it looks like at the moment.

[00:16:10]This is the bottom part. Of course, most of the stuff's up the top there, but here's the advert for it. There we are.

[00:16:16]That's it in the uh 2001 brochure.

[00:16:20]Lovely place to stay.

[00:16:22]>> Yeah. And this place I think believe it is not only for holiday parks, but it also has residential as well.

[00:16:30]Lovely.

[00:16:32]That's pretty much it for our little adventure up at this end. Going to start heading back now, but nice to see things have started to open up, get a bit busier. Plenty of traffic as you can see.

[00:16:45]And of course on our right hand side as we're coming up now is the other riders bakery which we also have in town as well.

[00:16:53]>> Lovely.

[00:16:54]>> I did have a bread roll from there once when I went to the chip thief.

[00:16:58]>> Well, it's one of >> very very nice very nice bread roll.

[00:17:00]>> It's one of our local establishments in the town so we use it quite regularly.

[00:17:05]Although I'm like Bill's mom. I'm a fan of We Shop Bakery and always will be.

[00:17:12]>> Got little things like this popping up these days. Thai street food. a van.

[00:17:16]Lovely.

[00:17:18]>> And also in town in Dorish, we also have a Thai restaurant in town.

[00:17:23]>> He's noticing the size of those chimneys >> on that.

[00:17:26]>> Oh, not in comparison. There's three of them on there. See, two on one side, one on the other.

[00:17:31]>> So maybe that's a huge thing underground with a fake cottage on top.

[00:17:35]>> Yeah, maybe.

[00:17:35]>> And uh Oh, there's another There's four of them.

[00:17:37]>> There's four.

[00:17:38]>> Blimey.

[00:17:39]>> Gimy. There must be.

[00:17:40]>> Maybe it's a rocket and it takes off.

[00:17:42]>> Maybe it's something to do with NASA.

[00:17:44]This is a bone of contention in Dish just local news. It's the state of the road here.

[00:17:49]>> Yeah, it's the state of the footpath because of the roots of these trees and this has been like this for years. But of course, now these new mobility scooters come along and people rather than avoid them seem to be taking the efforts to drive over them and they're completely rolling over. But it's very sad. But you know, I think somebody ought to be put painting a warning on them to stop them actually coming along here on a mobility scooter.

[00:18:13]>> Here we are at Ian's Cafe, Ian's Coffee Shop. Andy knows him.

[00:18:20]>> Yeah, it's a very good establishment.

[00:18:21]And he used to be in Coron Cove.

[00:18:24]And of course you got the coffee shop there and the bike shack which does uh all sorts of bikes and repairs and >> bikes for hire as well which is very good.

[00:18:35]>> Sign for the Brunale carriages which is your railway accommodation.

[00:18:41]There's a shot of inside.

[00:18:42]>> Yep. They're very well uh done, aren't they?

[00:18:46]>> Yes. And and the thing is you got to remember in the beginning when these first came about they were student accommodation really people coming down here which we started our talk about when we came here >> but at the end of the day it's a lot better >> than a barrel from 1967.

[00:19:03]>> The facilities are lovely.

[00:19:04]>> Now one of the things that a lot of people will say Doris Warren is semi famous for banana fritters.

[00:19:09]>> A lot of people say they used to get banana fritters down there. banana fritters.

[00:19:13]>> And uh >> and just behind this fence here, and you can just make out the top of it, you can see where the place where you used to acquire your banana fritters from. And there it is. That used to be the orange that sold the banana fritters stashed away behind this fence here by the wobbly road.

[00:19:32]>> Yeah.

[00:19:33]>> Where the trees are winning. As you can see, they've taken the fence down to accommodate them. So there's no chance they're going to be taking the the trees down to accommodate the pathways that are falling apart from them. There we go.

[00:19:47]That's a banana fritter bar as was here at Dorish Warren. And then it moved into this unit. Yeah.

[00:19:52]>> Which is just across from it being stored.

[00:19:54]>> And we've just been told it's not been open for about 10 years. Uh look at the prices up there. Fries for 2 pound50.

[00:20:01]Cheeky cheesy fries for £3 pound50.

[00:20:05]>> Those were the days. Tongue tingling hot cheese sauce, spicy beef, jalapenos, and chili sauce.

[00:20:13]>> Excellent.

[00:20:16]>> Days gone by Dean's place. Very, very small.

[00:20:20]>> Very small fish and chip shop >> right here on the corner >> where you go up to the station or you come down from the station.

[00:20:28]>> Yeah. So, it's ideally placed for anybody going to catch a train.

[00:20:33]>> And of course, we covered this the other week. we came which is the copper mine.

[00:20:38]There's still evidence today of the copper mine which was once here and uh I think it's on one of the menus.

[00:20:46]It mentions the word copper.

[00:20:48]>> Let's have a glimpse up there. But like I say, we're not doing this side today.

[00:20:52]We did that last time.

[00:20:53]>> And most of the people that you're seeing here today are local people.

[00:20:56]They've come down to either walk the dog, have a quick dip, or just enjoy the day. And why indeed not? There we are.

[00:21:05]Look, so busy talking to Andy, Mr. Train pulling in. Crazy, >> right?

[00:21:13]>> Brilliant.

[00:21:14]>> Okay then. Well, have a good weekend and we'll see you on Monday for something special.

[00:21:22]>> A nice clean window on this side.

[00:21:25]Lovely. There's the top of Reuben's.

[00:21:28]There's Thunder Park in the distance boat house with those lovely chips they do.

[00:21:36]There we go. Going to go over the other side now. Get a shot of the Langston.

[00:21:40]There we are through the trees. There he is. The Langston that we went to earlier. What a lovely place.

[00:21:48]Interesting to see the other side of the Warren.

[00:21:53]>> We are now approaching stories.

[00:21:57]the step down from the train to the platform. And of course, we get our usual shot of Dish.

[00:22:04]See if it's changed in the last hour or so.

[00:22:08]Nope, it's all still there.

[00:22:11]Still digging.

[00:22:14]Still standing. Still building. Oh, look. They're building. Building a frontage on the top of those steps.

[00:22:22]Still spooky.

[00:22:24]Still colorful.

[00:22:30]Still Sean's Jones grandparents.

[00:22:34]Still the bridge and still the tunnel and into the rockfall tunnel. There we go.

[00:22:52]and spray point showing his spray.

[00:22:57]Lovely letters.

[00:22:59]Smashing the normal between the train and the platform.

[00:23:12]That was Norman Topsham. I've just traveled on.

[00:23:19]And of course, as usual, We shall film him on his way.

[00:23:31]There he goes off the painting.

[00:23:37]Smashing.

[00:23:39]Here's a question for you train buffs.

[00:23:42]Educate me in the comments. I've just seen the Norman top MBE. Can I say I've traveled on non-topion MBE or can I not say that because I wasn't actually in that particular carriage with the plaque on the outside? Does it count?

[00:23:58]Let me know. There we go. Another Warren visit rounded off, done and dusted.

[00:24:04]Quite pleased with that. Looking forward to editing it. Hope you found that fun and informative. I enjoyed researching some of that. Very nice. And we'll be back with Andy again on Monday where we're going somewhere completely different which I hope you'll enjoy as well. See you then. I'll see you tomorrow. Take care. Bye.