On Torquay’s Lucius Street stands the Greek Orthodox Church of St Andrew.
Originally known as St Saviours, the church was built in the 14th century on the site of an earlier Norman chapel. It was declared redundant by the Church Authorities in the 1960s.
Overlooking the church on the other side of St Efrides Road is a series of arches, now overgrown with weeds.
This terracing – sometimes referred as the Orangery – acted to extend the foundations and gardens of the 1830s Lauriston Hall.
There is a story that it was built because the Hall’s residents didn’t like having to see the graveyard below.
One version of the story goes something like this: the Hall’s owner was a rich merchant who married an Italian girl. Each time she looked out of the window she cried. When her husband asked her the reason for her distress, she replied that seeing the graves made her deeply unhappy. He then had the terrace built to obscure the graves from the Hall’s view.
However, Victorian and Edwardian tourist guides had a tendency to invent or import interesting anecdotes. Also, since the Hall was, presumably, built before the terrace, the story may not be entirely reliable.
In 1942 the Hall was bombed, but the terrace survived.
