Torquay – Grosvenor Hotel

I felt the need to walk by the Abbey Sands hotel en route back to the hotel.

Best known, to me at least, as where Channel 4’s Hotel was filmed. This image is from Google Streetview from 16 years ago. I still follow Mark Jenkins on Facebook and look back on those episodes with some fondness, he was a true entertainer. I haven’t lined the photos up very well, but Google Streetview confirmed that the location I had worked out was right.

Not much to see here now….

However, back in the day, this is where the restaurant attached to the hotel was located, down some steps.

Anyway, it was good to see where the filming took place, it’s not quite where I imagined the hotel to be for some reason. The frontage has changed a little bit, but it’ll always be the Grosvenor to me. There have been a few owners since Mark Jenkins left it, with some considerable money spent on restorations and refurbishments. The hotel market in Torquay isn’t what it was, so it took some bravery to make such a large investment. I did decide to watch a couple of episodes of the programme over the last week, to remind myself of the past glories.