About Us
Wylams gardens
The English Riviera
During the Napoleonic Wars in the 19th Century, people were unable travel to Europe, & Torquay became a substitute Grand Tour destination for the affluent young people of the day.
While the origins of the town were as a health resort, the opportunity to become the richest town in England came from the interruption of the 'Grand Tour' that cultural experience for affluent young folk who could afford to wander the continent. At school and university these men had studied Greek and Roman history, language and literature and went abroad to visit major European cultural centres.
These tourists spent a great deal of money abroad.
The collection of art became a theme, and many came home with paintings and antiques. They also brought with them ideas about architecture and culture.Britain's elite adopted and reshaped the Bay. If they couldn't visit the towns of Italy and France, they would recreate southern Europe on the English coast.
During this period in mid 19th Century The town became a place for the wealthy to buy or lease holiday homes, & so began a long protracted period of building homes to provide for these clients.
What architectural style could then be more appropriate for the rapidly growing town than that which replicated the buildings and gardens of the Mediterranean so badly missed by these wealthy individuals.
It was the Italianate style that became widely adopted, and most popular between 1840 and 1885.
In 1862 Charles Dickens wrote, “Torquay is a pretty place… a mixture of Hastings and Tunbridge Wells and little bits of the hills about Naples”. Ruskin would carry on the theme and call Torquay, “The Italy of England”.
The Italianate style then spread beyond the private residences. Today, we see this evolution of the way in which our Victorian ancestors envisioned their world in Torquay’s parks and gardens.
Wylam House
Built in 1862 Wylam typifies the kind of Grand Italianate residence being built at the time.The Lease of a parcel of land at the top of one of Torquays best vantage spots was offered for a term of 99 years from September 1861 from
Sir Lawrence Palk subject to an annual grd rent of £30
(From an article in the Morning Post 8th May 1865)
The lease was assigned to John Chudleigh Parker (Local builder) with a proviso for him to erect a ‘Dwelling house’ within the space of two years from assignment.
In 1863 having built the house to Palks Italianate specification, Parker, reassigned the lease to
The Right Honourable Lord William Henry Hugh Cholmondeley
who became its first resident.
Cholmondeley (Marquis of Cholmondeley) descended from Hugh, Baron of 'Malpas' whose family had an unbroken male decent of over 500 years back to the doomsday survey, he named the Villa ‘Malpas Lodge' & so it remained for the next 30 years.
Kya Lami 1894
Frederick P Theophilus Struben & his elder brother Harry are recognised as the pioneering prospectors of what became the Central Rand & West Rand goldfields in South Africa.
What they started has developed into the greatest gold mining region in the world.
Fred left South Africa & moved to London in the late 1880’s with his wife Mabel before finally settling down in Devon in 1890 ..
The Struben family purchased the Freehold for what was then Malpas Lodge in 1893.
In 1894 with his South African heritage still very important to him he renamed the Villa 'Kya Lami' which is the Zulu word for
"My Home"
The house remained Kya Lami until 1917 when it was sold to Sir James Knott, 1st Baronet (31 January 1855 – 8 June 1934)
Knott was the Tory MP for Sunderland and was living at the time in Wylam, Northumberland.
He renamed the property on his arrival to 'Wylam House' which it remains to this day