North Street
What Three Words: ///songbird.
Adjoining the North Street Beauty Parlour is the sole surviving wall of the grand Royal Talbot Hotel, originally simply the Talbot Hotel. Built by the 2nd Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, grandson of the 1st Baron Edgcumbe, it opened in 1817 to capture the growing coaching trade that was passing through the town. It was served by coaches making the journey from London to Penzance and from Penzance and Falmouth to Torpoint and Devonport. The hotel provided stabling for horses and refreshments for travellers.
The London to Falmouth coach in the 1830s was operated by the large London firm of William Chaplin and departed from its London base at the Swan With Two Necks, in Lad Lane. Leaving London at 7.30pm it made the 26 hour journey to Lostwithiel via Amesbury, Exeter, and Plymouth to arrive at the Talbot at 9.12pm. It then travelled on to Falmouth, a 4 hour journey arriving at 1.05am. The return journey to London departed from the Talbot at 5.36am.
Inn yard of the Swan With Two Necks
Initially owned by the Cory family, the Talbot Hotel was put up for sale in 1835 and was acquired by Thomas Tabb, who with his son William ran the hotel until the 1870s. The Tabbs built it into a highly successful business, hosting civic functions, balls, and prestigious social events. In the early years of Tabb ownership, the hotel was known as Tabbs Talbot hotel, but after Queen Victoria’s visit to the town in 1846, William Tabb appended the word Royal to the name of the hotel – though the Queen had not visited the hotel.
A Talbot dog - an extinct breed
For a time in the 1870s the hotel was owned by William Harvey of Stonehouse, Plymouth, but in the late 1870s it was purchased by Ferdinand Wheeler from Shrewsbury. He was possibly attracted by the familiarity of the name Talbot that he knew as the family name of the Earls of Shrewsbury. To enhance the image of the hotel, Mr Wheeler purloined the Earl’s heraldic arms, depicting a hunting Talbot dog, for his writing paper, though the Earl had no connection with Lostwithiel. After Ferdinand’s death, the hotel was run by his wife Armanel and then, into the 1920s, by his son Henry Clemens Wheeler.
The building of the A390 by-pass in 1938-9 involved the widening and realignment of the existing Restormel Road and so required the demolition of the Royal Talbot, its adjoining stables, and the coach house on the other side of the widened road. All that remains of the original building is the gable-end wall that supports the adjoining house. The large grassed area covers much of the original floor plan.
Cross the main road to