Paignton
May 18, 2012
About the sprung floor Glenn wrote:
"At the top of the staircase, on the left, was an entry into the ballroom where, during a dance, I was to meet an airwoman who was instrumental in shortening my stay in Paignton.
The ballroom was a work of art in itself. The floor was of sprung parquet for ease of dancing which I noticed immediately on walking across it. Quite an unusual sensation. One side and one end wall featured large windows with unparalleled views of the grounds facing seaward. The other end wall had two alcoves with curved front designed to hold small groups of musicians to entertain the guests. The inside wall had a minimum of decoration and I must explain the reason for that. During an evening in which groups of airmen and guests were enjoying themselves with dancing and small talk, someone pointed to the wall and said, “The damn thing is disappearing into the floor!” And so it was. Apparently it was designed to retract down behind the huge painting, exposing a balcony with a view down to the entry hall. An amazing piece of engineering!"
I mentioned before that you never have to worry about going hungry in England, so I fully expected that scones would be available at Oldway Mansion. They were… but they were all gone! New ones were about to be baked, if I wanted to wait 20 minutes.
By this time I had learned that Brixham, hometown of my great-great-grandmother, was only about four miles away and I’d decided to hop a bus over there. Didn’t really want to spend precious time waiting for a scone, but it would be fresh and I was hungry.
It worked out rather well. A wedding was in progress so some rooms at the top of the stairs had been blocked off. By the time I finished eating, a door was open so I peeked inside. Wasn’t sure if it was the ballroom or not. Then, a lady happened to walk across the corner of the floor and I saw it sink a bit. The sprung floor! I chuckled/gasped aloud, and the lady smiled.
The owner of the hotel in Plymouth mentioned dancing on such a floor in Liverpool. They did a dance that involved a big hop in unison. He said that some people who weren’t aware of the spring action of the floor fell over.
Sprung floor
Lastly, a little history from the net:
On going up the drive and through into the car park, a large round building can be seen to the right of Oldway Mansion, this is known as The Rotunda. It was built in 1873, and was used when originally built as a riding pavilion, and exercise area. It had a removable wooden floor that was removed in order to ride the horses. The Singer Family with their colourful background and fame [but that is another story], did not use 'Oldway' as their permanent family home after 1918. With Paris Singer's break-up of the love affair with Isadora Duncan the famous dancer in 1917, and the fact that it was cheaper tax wise for him to live in America, he became an American citizen.
In September 1914 'Oldway' was used as a hospital - The American Woman's war relief hospital. Even the Rotunda was converted to House rows of beds for the wounded soldiers being brought back to England from the trenches of France and Belgium in the 1914-1918 War. In the November of 1914. Queen Mary visited Oldway Hospital.
1940 saw the II World War, and again Oldway was used in the war effort by housing the RAF. It was used as a training wing for RAF Cadets learning to be aircrew. In 1943 there was an air raid on the town of Paignton, and Oldway with no exception was damaged, along with many other properties in the town.
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