Frognel

Frognel is a large villa, likely dating from the late 1840s or early 1850s, and originally used as a hotel. It is situated on Higher Woodfield Road, Torquay. The villa’s design is in the Tudor Gothic style.

The main block is rectangular, consisting of two depths, with an entrance on the south side leading into a passage. A staircase rises at right-angles from this passage. A service wing extends at a right angle to the north-east, forming one side of a stable and service yard located to the east of the main house.

The exterior is two storeys, with an attic and basement. It features deep eaves with cusped pierced bargeboards and moulded pendants along the verges. The symmetrical three-bay front has two gables and a central gabled first-floor oriel. A projecting porch has a coped gable with kneelers and a chamfered Tudor arched doorway. The original inner door has vertical panels and a Tudor arched fanlight with intersecting glazing bars. Windows have chamfered frames and moulded mullions, with casements and glazing bars. Main windows include hoodmoulds and transoms, while the first-floor outer windows have Venetian shutters. The left return is also three bays and originally symmetrical, with canted bays on the ground floor and a central gabled dormer. An alteration in the mid-20th century involved adding a deep balcony with a sun lounge to the first-floor window on the left. The east roof slopes have angled half-hips, through which chimney shafts project. An archway with octagonal piers provides access to the service/stable yard, located to the right of the entrance elevation. The elevations facing into this yard have been heavily altered.

Inside, original features remain, including a stick baluster staircase, plaster cornices, original joinery, and marble chimney pieces. Late 19th-century plans for a proposed billiard room and library are displayed in the hall. Although some alterations have been made, Frognel is considered the best surviving example of the Gothic style of villa in Torquay, where distinctive Gothic details are applied to a conventional symmetrical stuccoed villa design.