George Newnes

Lynton & Lynmouth owe a great deal to one very generous benefactor, browse through any book on the area and the name George Newnes keeps cropping up. Born in 1851 in Matlock Derbyshire the son of a Congregational church minister, he was working as a Manchester haberdasher when in 1881 he had an instant publishing success launching a popular penny magazine of short items called Tit-Bits.
Education was improving, the public was avid for light entertainment and miscellaneous information, and the first man in Britain to realise this 'New Journalism' was George Newnes. Other magazine titles followed including The Strand Magazine, in which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a close personal friend, was first able to publish his Sherlock Holmes mystery series, and Country Life. Success followed success, his empire rapidly expanded; he became very wealthy and served as MP for Newmarket from 1885, becoming a baronet in 1895.

Newnes visited North Devon and fell in love with Lynton & Lynmouth becoming a key player in the development of the twin villages. The steep gradient between Lynton & Lynmouth had always been a deterrent to visitors and hard work for locals. He was always a man with an eye on the main chance and saw there was an opportunity using the recently patented invention by a local engineer to lay track up the 1 in 1.75 gradient. The innovative water powered cliff railway cost £8,000 and opened in 1890.

George Newnes loved to holiday with his family in Lynton & Lynmouth and that same year bought Hollerday Hill, overlooking the village behind the town hall and built a summer residence there with work completed on the imposing mansion 3 years later.

Largely as a result of his efforts, the 19-mile Lynton & Barnstaple Railway opened in 1898 ostensibly to bring visitors from the main line railways at Barnstaple. Newnes was seen as being a great patron, but in truth he may have been less altruistic. By building a narrow gauge line terminating some distance from the town centre and linking to Barnstaple rather than Minehead, from where more people wanted to travel, it is believed that he may have been keen to preserve "Little Switzerland" for the wealthier classes.

Other gifts followed, Lynton Town Hall, the Congregational church and cricket pavilion and elsewhere Newnes financed an Antarctic expedition and gave liberally to the Salvation Army. There seemed no end to his generosity, yet by 1908 there were rumours that his businesses were failing and with financial worries affecting his health, sadly by 1910 his fortune had gone and he died a broken man at Hollerday House. To their shock and surprise, the Newnes family were saddled with debts, the mansion was put up for sale, three years it stood empty before in 1913 it burnt to the ground in very mysterious circumstances. Dead but not forgotten Sir George Newnes ideas, enthusiasm and money helped turn Lynton and Lynmouth into a fashionable seaside resort.

The Lynton & Lynmouth Cliff Railway still operates to this day powered only by water and has not broken down in its 119 years of operation. The Lynton & Barnstaple Railway, never a major revenue earner, closed in 1935 largely as a result of the motor car. Seventy years on, a group of enthusiasts are recreating the atmosphere of Newnes' railway, and steam trains are once again carrying passengers along part of the old route from Woody Bay Station with a full programme of exciting events going on during the year for you to enjoy.

Contributed by: Ellen James