Many in Totnes are becoming excited by the progress of the re-vamping of the Bull Inn on the Rotherfold. Contractors are working feverishly to complete a comprehensive overhaul of the innards of the old building while rumours develop, as they do about everything in Totnes, concerning the mounting costs of the renovation. Last October the town's rumour mill measured the overall costs at £300,000. By March of this year with work still seeming no nearer completion the choir of gossip put the total cost of restoration as £750,000 and this month it stands at £1,500,000, and with the new lick of paint put on the outer wall in these last few days, it is expected that when the Bull Inn re-opens circa October, 2019 the overall cost of the project will have reached just short of a billion pounds sterling with every expectation it will go over this mark.
Everyone is commenting on the colour of the paint now coating the tavern. In hue it is somewhere between a dark pink and a light terracotta. Some like it, some don't. General opinion is that it was chosen because it is similar to the colour of seagull poo and so evidence of the birds' effluent will not be visible. Personally speaking, I quite like it, the paint that is, not the poo.
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| Creative Camouflage |
By the by, there is also a story doing the rounds that the town council is meeting up with a group of influential seagulls in an attempt to request that the latter (who feed off our poorly wrapped food waste) move their nests to the bottom of the valley where an excellent tidal stretch of river - with fish in it - has been provided for them.
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| Lifeless Lift at Totnes Railway Station |
ps The Kingsbridge Inn in Leechwell Street at the top of the town which has been closed for over two years is to open next April as a Hilton "Boutique" Inn . This new marque is an initiative of Hilton Hotels to create a range of small, high quality, intimate hotels.
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