Fountain found

2:06pm Thursday 18th October 2001

FREE Press readers can now judge for themselves whether a baroque fountain that once adorned Frogmoor Gardens is now stands on the Torquay's seafront.

Intrepid Ron O' Neill, 80, of New Road, Walters Ash, and his wife Eileen were journeying to meet old friends living in Torquay when they came across the story of the disappearing fountain in last week's Free Press.

"We took the Free Press with us to give to old friends who used to live in High Wycombe," said Mrs O'Neill. "We were intrigued to see the feature and went off to the seafront to have a look and take a photograph."

But Mrs O' Neill has doubts it is the same fountain.

"Although my picture was taken from a different angle, surely the upper bowl looks smaller in my picture of the Torquay fountain," she said. "And there is no cherub at the top of the Wycombe fountain. But then some alterations may have been made."Retired Sidney Sturt, of Alexandra Road, High Wycombe, wrote to the Free Press in September urging locals to help him track down the fountain rumoured to have been melted down for armament manufacture during the Second World War. Are both fountains one and the same?

Anyone with information should contact Michelle Fleming on 01494 755151

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