Surprise!

I've recently come across a couple of references to the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay. And following them up came across this site about the hotel:

In the late 1970s, there was much talk in the bars of Torquay's hotels as to whether there was a "real" Basil Fawlty in Torquay. It was known that Monty Python were filming in Torquay in the early seventies and stayed at several hotels. The Links Hotel, St Marychurch was mentioned in one newspaper article, but not the Gleneagles. The BBC at the time refused to divulge this information. In 1979 the then owner of the Gleneagles, Mr Pat Phillips, revealed that John Cleese had stayed there and asked him about real incidents he could use. John Cleese had returned to the Gleneagles hoping to find the original owner, Mr Sinclair, still there, but he had sold the hotel in 1973 and moved to Florida. Mr Phillips told John Cleese about a Spanish waiter he had employed at a hotel in Shropshire and about problems he had had with unmarried couples (this was the early 'seventies!). John Cleese, as Basil Fawlty, returned the compliment by telling elderly residents Miss Tibbs and Miss Gatsby that they could have dinner at the Gleneagles when the builders were in (second episode).

I thought it would be interesting to get the satellite view of the Gleneagles, when I realized that it would be just as interesting (if not more so) to find the site that was used for exterior filming on the series.

Turns out it was destroyed after a fire. Even more disconcerting than that, it seems that there is footage of the fire on the DVD set as an Easter Egg.

I've been meaning to get the DVD for a while. I don't know if this makes me want it more or less.