After Lyme it was the first of the western
coast towns to bid for the custom of the habitues of such inland
resorts as Tunbridge Wells, Cheltenham and the like. The
Victorian-Gothic building known as Royal Glen, originally Woolbrook
Cottage, was for several years the home of the Duke and Duchess of
Kent and the infant Princess Victoria. The Duke died here in 1820 and
Queen Victoria caused a window to be placed to his memory in the
rebuilt parish church.
The town is mentioned in Thackeray's _Pendennis_, and was the home of
the immortal Mrs. Partington, an old acquaintance of Sidney Smith; she
is supposed to have lived in one of the cob cottages that used to be
on the front. Like the Lords with Reform, so was Mrs. Partington with
the Atlantic Ocean, which she tried to keep out of her front door with
a mop. "She was excellent at slop or puddle, but should never have
meddled with a tempest." If she was an actual character the good
dame's house probably stood where now the fine esplanade runs its
straight course between Peak Hill and the Alma Bridge over the Sid.
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