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History of the Warberries Nursing Home
DUNSTONE. Lease date 25 December 1844. {Sale Cat.] The property was originally called Buckingham House' in the 1840s and 1850s (census 1851 shows: William. Earl of Wicklow, head, born City of Dublin; Cecile, Countess, born in London. There were 3 daughters of which one was born in Paris, the youngest 16 years; among the staff was Louise Hackel of Switzerland, governess to Maria [she appears immediately after the family]; the 2 lady's maids were also Swiss).
Dr & Mrs Evanson & family were resident in 1859; Sir William Holbourne and the Misses Holbourne were listed among 'Arrivals' in 1849 [TD 12 Sep. 1849]).
It became 'Snowdenham' soon after when it was owned by Mr & Mrs Tinney [TD 1860] The grounds were not as large as Normount' (now Bishop's Court) but were large and spacious. Lease granted originally on 25th Dec. 1844 to Samuel White so that the house was built soon afterwards. The conveyance of 1920 shows that White took out two mortgages (one dated 1 July 1847).
The Earl of Wicklow appears as 'the fourth part' in a document dated 27 March 1850. The occupier in the 1880s was Mrs Tinney who presumably continued to live there after her husband died. By 1890 when the residents were Mrs Leo Schuster and Miss Schuster (perhaps leasing it), it had become Dunstone'.
In 1895 Joseph Andrew Keates was the owner and he appears to have bought from Mrs Tinney. On 26 February 1896 Briscoe Hooper and William Grant Wollen are named.
The purchase of the leasehold from the Liquidation Estates following the Haldon Sale is dated 1894, later than might have expected.
Mr A Barton, in 1891, was the owner (although not named in the conveyance) when he gave a dinner for all the workmen of Mr F Matthews of Babbacombe who had completed extensive alterations for him. The company present numbered nearly 100, among them Mr B. (who presided). Mr Richards (the architect), the Matthews, senior and junior, Mr W H Hayman (foreman of works) and Mr W H Moore (head gardener at Dunstone). Mr B expressed his complete satisfaction at the manner in which the alterations to his residence had been carried out.
He expressed some opposition to Incorporation' which he did not think was necessary. [TD 7 Jan. 1891 ] These changes can be seen on the 2nd ed of the OS map.
Later owners according to the document were John Gatehouse Raymond (who bought in October 1896 and Ernest Samuel Palmer who bought in March 1920. The property was divided into Dunstone/Audrey Court later on.
A preservation order was placed on the Warberries nursing home formerly known as'Audrey Court' by the Department of the Environment, because of its architectural and/or historical interest, in the 1970s and because 'the large Victorian villa was originally the summer residence of Lily Langtry, for whom it was purchased by King Edward VII, apparently'. [WMN 22 Jul. 1974].
The owner of Audrey Court and his neighbour (Mr W J G Cornwell) had planned to pull down the building and, because of its large grounds, build a modern block in its place. (Torbay Council had already rejected the design as being too large for the site. The next door, Dunstone, now the Warberries was scheduled and had to remain for the same reason.
The owner at the time, Mr Childs, said the story was that Lily Langtry was installed there by the King in 1901 and that periodically he visited her in his yacht.
Brian Joslin, solicitor to Mr Childs, said that he could only assume that the Department had access to some information, possibly private, which was not available to others. But it is a most extraordinary reason', he added The Western Morning News confirmed with the Department that this was the reason for the Order. Mr Childs also told of the ghost, possibly of Lily herself He described it has 'having greyish hair and being in her fifties'. 'Guests who stayed in Rooms 4 and 8 have heard knocking on doors in the middle of the night, he said In July 1976, Cyril and Phyllis Landen wrote from Spain, as owners for many years of Audrey Court, dismissed any stories of the ghost of Lily Langtry being there as pure fiction.
They did say that it had been at one time occupied by General Buller. Audrey Court was the old servants' part of the house; Dunstone, having a fine approach and with a real manor interior and lovely staircase, was where the owners lived. The bedrooms of the former were small compared with those at Dunstone and were clearly for servants.
A search of Rate books and other records in 1976 failed to uncover any evidence of Lily or the King so it is unlikely that she was in Torquay after 1900. She had, incidentally, married in 1899 for a second time to Hugo de Bathe. Lily (maiden name Le Breton) was married by special licence at St. Saviours, Jersey in 1874 to William Langtry - her address was then given as Engadina, Park Hill Road (the Torquay Directory lists them at the address only from March to May 1875). [Dudley in the 'Gilded Lily', p35 writes:] They sailed on their Luxury yacht Red Gauntlet' and for the next year were on one yacht or another (one was the Ripple') in various holiday areas including Torquay.
In the 1870s when Prince of Wales, Edward was often in Torquay, once staying in the Warberries with the Duchess of Sutherland. [Ellis p420] His sons were at Dartmouth between 1877 and 1879 but according to the reports he was always accompanied by the Princess when in South Devon.
Dunstone hall became a hotel and remained so up until 2005 when the current owner of the Warberries nursing home purchased Dunstone and reunited the building once more.
Built by General Redvers Buller in 1868 (although the Landens indicate a connection with the General). [General Buller was born at Downes near Crediton in 1839 so he would only have been 29 years old then. After joining the Army he served in China and South Africa, winning the VC for the rescue of three comrades during the Zulu campaign. During the Boer War he was Chief-of-Staff to Sir Evelyn Wood He finally became commanding general of the British forces in South Africa where it was at Ladysmith that he caused jubilation throughout Britain when he relieved the town, so long under siege by the Boers, at the fourth attempt. Later, while he was commander of the First Army Corps at Aldershot he made an imprudent speech and was retired in October 1901. He died in Downes, near Crediton, the family estate in 1908, having been there from the 1890s, according to Kelly's Directories, 1897, 1902 and 1906].
In 1922 the then Mayor addressed the Torquay Chamber of Commerce and had an idea which would appeal to members of the Chamber and that was the placing of identification tablets on the houses which had been occupied by celebrities who had resided in Torquay, for instance, Lord Beaconsfield, Emperor Napoleon III, Queen Victoria, King Edward, Rudyard Kipling... among others. Was there a story current in the Twenties, which we no longer know?
2006 brought the united building back to promence with the conversion into a grand nursing home. The history of this national treasure will surely continue cementing its status as one of the countries most interesting sites and premier nursing homes.
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