10 Things to Do in Torquay

The English Riviera's finest hits — coast, culture, caves and cream tea, no filler.

Torquay surprises visitors who write it off as a bucket-and-spade resort. There are real palms on the promenade, prehistoric caves in the clifftops, an intact medieval abbey a short walk from the beach, and a coastline that belonged to the world's best-selling novelist. First-timers often stay three days and wish they'd booked a week. Here, in rough order of unmissability, is where to start.

1. Walk the palm-lined seafront The promenade between Torquay Harbour and Corbyn Head is the place to clock the microclimate that earned this stretch its Riviera title. Exotic palms, mimosa and echium are not brochure props — they survive mild winters and genuinely thrive here. Walk it on any bright morning and the blue of the bay against red-sandstone cliffs makes a case that no copywriter should have to make. The harbour itself rewards a slow circuit: trawlers and yachts side by side, fish-and-chip cafés above the pontoons, and across the water the white-painted terraces that give Torquay its distinctly Mediterranean look.

2. Ride the Babbacombe Cliff Railway A few miles north of the harbour, where the red cliffs above Oddicombe beach rise steeply enough to make a walk down feel like bad planning, an early twentieth-century funicular solves the problem in style. The Babbacombe Cliff Railway has been making the descent since the 1920s, its cars counter-balancing each other on parallel tracks above the sea. It is a short ride — but on a clear day, with the English Channel spread below, it is one of those moments of pure, uncomplicated pleasure that only a certain kind of old-fashioned seaside engineering can deliver. There is a beach café at the bottom and a good clifftop terrace at the top.

3. Swim at Meadfoot or Anstey's Cove Torquay's beaches are more varied than visitors expect. Meadfoot, a sheltered south-facing bay a short walk from the town centre, suits families wanting calm water without the full resort carnival. For something wilder, Anstey's Cove — tucked below wooded cliffs to the north — is the place. The water there is startlingly clear, the approach requires a walk, and it rewards the effort. There is no funfair, no slot machine: just water, rock and the occasional sailing dinghy. The hidden coves north of Torquay are some of the least-known swimming spots in the South West.

4. Go underground at Kents Cavern Above the town, in the limestone of the Ilsham Valley, Kents Cavern holds one of the most remarkable prehistories of any site in Britain. Some of the country's oldest-known human remains have been found here, along with animal bones from a time when hyenas and cave bears roamed what is now Devon. The cave system has been visited since at least the Tudor period, and excavations in the nineteenth century helped reshape scientific understanding of early human history. Guided tours wind through chambers of stalactites and stalagmites; the rock formations alone would justify the visit even without the archaeology.

5. Spend a morning at Torre Abbey Walk ten minutes from the seafront and you reach Torre Abbey, Devon's best-preserved medieval monastery. Founded in the twelfth century, it served as an abbey for more than three hundred years before becoming a private house and eventually a public museum. The buildings range from Norman-era remains to fine Georgian rooms; the walled gardens are serious — a working collection of period plants rather than a municipal afterthought. There is also an Agatha Christie room, which brings us neatly to the next entry.

6. Follow the Agatha Christie trail Torquay's most famous native was born here in 1890 and the town shaped her imagination in lasting ways. The Agatha Christie coast takes in her birthplace neighbourhood on the hill above the harbour, the grand hotels where she set scenes, and the bay she returned to again and again in her work. A bronze statue of Christie sits near the harbour. For her final chapter in the landscape, the National Trust property at Greenway — her summer house above the River Dart — is an hour away by river ferry and well worth the detour. The house remains almost exactly as she left it, full of the archaeology books and paperback thrillers of a working writer who happened to be the most widely read novelist in history.

Here, in rough order of unmissability, is where to start.

7. Eat the freshest seafood at Brixham The southernmost point of Torbay is only a few miles from Torquay but feels like a different world: a working harbour dominated by rust-red trawlers, where the morning's catch goes directly to quayside stalls and restaurants rather than first to a distant distribution centre. Brixham's seafood — crab, lobster, sole, bass — is about as close to the source as you can get without actually going to sea. Go for lunch; arrive early if you want the pick of the day's landings.

8. Have a proper Devon cream tea This is not optional. A Devon cream tea — scones, local clotted cream, jam — is the correct punctuation for a Torbay afternoon, and Devon has its own unambiguous position in the great order of operations: cream first, then jam. The village of Cockington, a mile inland from Torquay's beach, offers the combination of the most photogenic setting (thatched cottages, a working forge, a country park) and a cream tea at the Old Mill café. If you get the order wrong, someone will politely correct you.

9. Take the steam train to Dartmouth One of the most scenic short journeys in England runs south from Paignton along the cliff edge to Kingswear, where a passenger ferry crosses the River Dart to Dartmouth. The Dartmouth Steam Railway uses vintage locomotives on a coastal line with views over the bay before dipping into wooded creekside country. Dartmouth itself — compact, handsome, with a proper castle above the estuary — makes a satisfying destination. Allow a full day: the return trip by river is different enough from the outward journey that both directions feel worth the time.

10. Walk a stretch of the South West Coast Path The great path runs around the full perimeter of Torbay, and you do not need to be a dedicated long-distance walker to get something real from it. A two-hour section north from Torquay Harbour above Anstey's Cove and Babbacombe rewards with vertiginous views over red cliffs and open sea. Heading south, the path skirts above Meadfoot beach before rounding into the wider bay. Pick any clear day, wear decent shoes, and the coast path will show you the English Riviera at its most honestly beautiful — not the palm-lined promenade version, but the ancient, salt-scoured, sea-facing original.

The English Riviera is small enough that all ten of these are reachable from a single base in Torquay — most without a car.

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