I visited the newly crowned ‘best B&B in England', from the town that brought us Fawlty Towers

Telegraph

2 days ago

Like a dad bod in swimwear, Torquay has looked a little awkward wearing the 'English Riviera' label in recent decades. A poster child for our faded seaside towns, the notion that this once-great resort could still be considered England's answer to Cannes has seemed, for a long time, faintly absurd, despite the French city's inflated reputation. Less so today.
On this sunny afternoon along the revamped harbour, ice cream-clutching families sit among the flowers watching swanky yachts sway in the quay, as diners spill out of seafood restaurants and pubs fill up.
In nearby Princess Gardens, shiny new hoardings surround the Victorian-era Pavilion – for decades a crumbling monument to past glories – now being scoped out for renovation. There's optimism in the air, providing you don't walk too far up the high street.
The town is also rewriting its hospitality story. Having spawned the world's rudest hotelier, Basil Fawlty, a character based on a Torquay guesthouse owner, the resort has flipped the Fawlty Towers script. At the AA's recent annual tourism awards, a local B&B, The 25 Boutique, was crowned England's best.
'It came out of the blue,' says Julian Banner-Price, The 25's lofty co-owner, greeting me at the property with a glass of fizz and a home-baked chocolate brownie.
Julian and husband Andy took on The 25 a decade ago, transforming it from a 'beige box' with 'urgh decor' into an offbeat property that wouldn't look out of place in Brighton's Kemptown.
The homemade artworks inside, many fashioned from old shop mannequins bought on eBay, look ripe for Instagram feeds. Only most of The 25's clientele aren't on social media.
'We thought we'd attract a young, trendy crowd from London and Brighton or wherever, but most of our guests are retired,' says Andy. 'Seventy per cent are repeat visitors.'
One satisfied customer is Ab Fab star Joanna Lumley, whose framed thank-you note hangs on the wall. 'She was, as you'd expect, just fabulous,' says Julian.
Subtle nods to Fawlty Towers abound in The 25. 'This is Prunella,' says Andy, pointing to a gold mannequin in a pink feather boa sitting pensively near the honesty bar in the lounge.
True to form for Torquay, my bedroom has no views of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plains, but it does have a zebra. 'That's Frank,' says Julian, motioning towards the haloed, gold-winged fibreglass equine mounted above my bed like a kitsch hunting trophy.
In a neighbouring room, guests have Manuel, a headless, bow tie-wearing mannequin, to keep them company. Among the other garish design flourishes are neon lights, sparkling headboards and TVs in the showers. 'The water bill's through the roof,' says Julian. 'People don't want to get out of the shower.'
The 25 is, then, loud, proud and, as Julian admits, 'not for everyone'. 'Some people like beige,' he says. 'All we've ever done is create our perfect place to stay – we're just glad that others like it, too.'
The AA award is the latest silverware to be crammed into The 25's trophy cabinet. VisitEngland crowned it the nation's best B&B in 2020 and then again in 2022, while TripAdvisor declared it the world's best in 2017 and 2024. There have been other gongs.
The pair's achievements are all the more remarkable given that Andy was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2022. Treatment was, mercifully, a success. 'I'm fitter than ever,' he tells me.
The 25 is a two-man show, stubbornly so. The laundry, the cleaning, the breakfasts, the home-baked treats that appear in rooms every day – even the back-to-the-brick renovation of the property – is all the couple's work.
'We do absolutely everything ourselves because we want it done to our high standards,' says Andy. No kidding. Their meticulous eye for detail would put an F1 team principle to shame. 'All the screw heads on all the switches and sockets point down,' says Andy. I test him on this, scouring The 25 for an erroneous horizontal screw, but without success. I give up and go to bed with Frank.
I sleep like a baby and eat like a king. Breakfast at The 25 is as indulgent as the decor. There are homemade yogurts, pastries, fruit pots, fruit shots and a choice of cooked breakfast.
'It spoils you, staying here,' coos the woman on the table next to me. She and her husband are down from Fleet, Hampshire. It's their sixth time at The 25. 'We were never the sort to come back to places, but we love it here; we get looked after.'
Encouragingly for me, given my ambition to open a B&B one day, Andy and Julian came into hospitality with no prior experience. They previously worked in the corporate world – Julian in IT, Andy in customer services – but it left them unfulfilled. Impulsively, they quit their old lives and bought a 400-year-old hotel, the Plas Dinas Country House, in Snowdonia.
'It was quite rundown and had just lost its three-star rating,' says Andy. 'But we turned it around – it was five star when we left.' It still is.
In fact, it's just been crowned Wales' best restaurant with rooms at the very same AA awards. Prince William, then based on Anglesey with the RAF, was a regular. A framed picture of him at the property hangs in the hall at The 25.
In the end, the rambling Welsh pile proved too much, so they downsized and moved to Torquay, grateful to leave Snowdonia's weather behind. It's sunnier down here with brighter days ahead, reckons Julian.
'Torquay is getting back to where it should be,' he says. The old swimwear is starting to fit again.