Churchill Retirement Living has secured planning for a new development of retirement apartments at Fawlty Towers.
The Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay was where John Cleese and the Monty Python team stayed in 1973 while filming ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’ and it unwittingly became the inspiration for the hit sitcom Fawlty Towers.
Cleese’s character - neurotic hotel owner Basil Fawlty - was based on the hotel’s former owner, Donald Sinclair, whom Cleese called ‘the most marvellously rude man I’ve ever met.’
Fawlty Towers went on to become an iconic show and was voted as the greatest television programme of all time by the British Film Institute in 2000, despite only airing for 12 episodes.
The 41-bedroom Gleneagles Hotel ceased trading earlier this year, with local planning officers noting that the hotel wasn’t commercially viable.
Despite various plans to demolish the hotel over the past decade, it was ultimately the plans put forward by Churchill Retirement Living that gained planning permission.
Andrew Burgess, Planning Director for Planning Issues said:
“The original hotel will be demolished, but in its place will be 32 apartments, for those aged 60 and above, built to our high design and quality. Like its former guests, we’re sure new owners of the apartments will appreciate the development’s brilliant location and perhaps have a laugh at its quirky history.
“We know how much the site means to people, and once construction starts we’ll be sure to produce something that Basil would be proud of.”
Redevelopment of the Gleneagles Hotel site will be scheduled for completion in early 2017. It will follow the same highly successful pattern of all Churchill developments, providing quality, secure, self-contained homes with beautiful gardens.
Owners have the benefits of a Lodge Manager, 24 hour care line, Owners’ Lounge, Guest Suite and laundry room.
For more information on our development in Torquay, please click here