Bespoke joinery in the Lincombes has one enemy that most of Torquay is spared. These slopes above Meadfoot look straight out to the open Channel, away from the shelter the harbour side of town gets, and the wind arrives carrying salt. That salt settles in every joint, draws moisture into it and holds it there, so paint lifts first at the bottom rail of a sash and the foot of a door. We make external joinery for these houses with that in mind: drips cut where water must leave, ironmongery that will not rust, joints sealed before they are put together, and paint that can be washed down and recoated, not burnt off every few years.
Tell us roughly what you have in mind and we will arrange a time to come and measure. A photo of the space on your phone is usually enough to start with.
The Joiner Behind It
The Lincombes face the open Channel, and wind off the water carries salt into every joint. Exterior timber up here needs more thought than it would on the sheltered side of town.
Knowing how to build against that comes from experience. Luke has done joinery since he was a child, the trade runs in his family, and he picked up methods you won't find at a trade school. He and the team detail every outside piece with the weather in mind.
About The Lincombes
The Lincombes cover the high ground south and east of the Warberries, running down through woodland towards Meadfoot. Like the Warberries, the land belonged to the Palk family, and the same builders worked it. The showpiece is Hesketh Crescent, put up between 1846 and 1848 by the Harvey brothers and first called Meadfoot Crescent; it was renamed in 1849 after the birth of the Heskeths' first child. It is listed Grade II*, its centre is now the Osborne Hotel, and Charles Darwin spent six weeks at No 2 in 1861 while recovering his health.
Around it, villas sit in their own grounds on terraces cut into the hillside, most of them stuccoed, most with big sash windows turned towards the view. Some are still houses; many are hotels, holiday flats or apartments. Torbay Council designated the Lincombes a conservation area on 28 January 1975, the same day as the Warberries, and at over 101 hectares it is one of the larger ones in Torbay. For owners, that means windows and doors on the seaward side matter twice: once to the planners and once to the weather. The upkeep side is covered in our post on caring for timber joinery near the coast.
Services In The Lincombes
A sea view is the reason people buy in the Lincombes, and the joinery that frames it gets the worst of the weather. Hotels and holiday apartments add a second demand: rooms that take hard use from a new set of guests every week.
Sashes and casements for the seaward elevations, made to the existing glazing bar and horn profiles. We detail sills, drips and weatherboards for wind-driven rain and specify stainless or bronze ironmongery, because plated steel starts to bleed rust within a season here.
Read more about Timber Windows & Doors
A good share of Torquay's hotels and serviced apartments sit on these slopes. We make reception desks, bedroom furniture, wardrobes and bar fittings for them, built to be wiped down every day and repaired when a guest's suitcase takes a door off.
Read more about Commercial Joinery & Shopfitting
If the best view in the house is from a bay window, it deserves somewhere to sit. We build window seats with lift-up lids or drawers underneath, and freestanding pieces sized for rooms that were laid out to face the sea.
Read more about Bespoke FurnitureWhy It Matters Here
Water should be thrown off a window, not left to sit. We cut a drip groove under every sill and transom and give each horizontal surface enough fall that rain runs clear, which is where salt-laden water does most damage.
Within sight of Meadfoot, plated steel hinges and screws rust and leave brown streaks down fresh paint. We use marine-grade stainless steel or bronze for every fitting that faces outside, including the screws nobody sees.
End grain soaks up water like a straw. Every tenon and mitre is primed before the joint goes together, so if moisture gets past the paint later it meets primer, not bare end grain.
A coating that cracks has to be stripped. We use microporous systems that let the timber breathe and can simply be washed, keyed and recoated, which is what makes a seaward window in the Lincombes affordable to look after.
In a conservation area the council will want new windows to look like the old. We draw the existing sash, take sections of glazing bars and horns, and supply drawings you can submit with an application.
For hotels and holiday lets, we can make everything in advance and fit room by room between departures, so a refit does not mean closing for a fortnight in the season.
From The Workshop
This is one of our joiners sanding a pale oak panel by hand on the workshop bench before it is finished. Machine sanding gets a surface flat, but the last pass is by hand with a block, working with the grain, so the coating has an even key and no swirl marks to catch the light.
On the coast it shows quickly. A finish on a seaward window is only as good as the surface under it, and any scratch or raised grain becomes the weak point where salt and water start to work. The same workshop routine goes into every external piece we make for homes and hotels in the Lincombes. More on our timber windows and doors page.
Reassurance
Our Process
Seven stages, the same as anywhere in Torquay. Above Meadfoot the survey looks harder at the outside of the house, and the fit has to be planned around wind and rain coming in from the sea.
We look at every window and door on the elevation facing the sea and test the timber with a probe at the bottom rails, sills and the foot of each frame, which is where salt and water collect. Often only the lower sashes or a sill need replacing. We record the profiles and check whether your building is listed, since that changes what can be repaired and what can be renewed.
You get a drawn elevation and a plan, with real dimensions on them, before anything is priced as final. Door swings, drawer positions, where the sockets end up. It is much cheaper to move a shelf on paper than after it has been cut.
We agree the species and the grade, and where it matters we pick the actual boards. Oak with heavy medullary rays looks completely different from quarter-sawn stock. The quote names the timber, the finish and the ironmongery, so you are comparing like with like against anyone else you ask.
The timber sits in the workshop and settles towards the moisture content it will live at. BS EN 942 puts joinery for a house heated to between 12 and 21 degrees at 9 to 13 per cent. Skip this and the piece will do its moving after it is installed, in your hallway, rather than on our racks.
Cut, moulded and jointed, then dry-assembled on the bench so we find out about any problem while it is still in our building. Carcasses go together, doors are hung, drawers are fitted and adjusted. Nothing is finished until it has been put together at least once.
Sprayed, oiled or hand-painted in the workshop, including the backs and the edges you will never see. Sealing five faces and leaving the sixth bare is how a panel takes up moisture unevenly and bows. Finishing off site also means no spray dust through your house.
We watch the forecast and choose a calm, dry day before taking out an old window on the seaward side, and we never leave an opening unsealed overnight. New frames are bedded and pointed, the sashes balanced and adjusted, and the ironmongery fitted. In spring, once the winter gales are over, we come back to check the seals and ease anything that has swollen.
Local
The Lincombes run down to the edge of the sea, so everything worth doing here is on the water or looking at it. These three are all a short walk downhill.
A shingle beach below the cliffs, about a mile round the headland from the harbour, with a café, beach chalets for hire and Thatcher Rock just offshore. It was one of the first beaches in Torquay where men and women were allowed to bathe together, and a young Agatha Christie came here regularly to swim.
Learn more about Meadfoot Beach on Google Maps
A grassy limestone plateau some 75 metres above the sea, with one of the widest views across Torbay. Daddy is an old Devon name for the Devil, and local legend says he lived in a cave below, formed when part of the cliff fell away. Above Peaked Tor Cove is the Home Guard's Second World War mine watchers' post.
Learn more about Daddyhole Plain on Google Maps
A small cove at the harbour end of the coast path, below the Imperial Hotel, with layers of red rock showing in its cliffs. In Agatha Christie's youth it was the ladies' bathing cove, and in her autobiography she describes nearly drowning here before an old boatman pulled her out of the water.
Learn more about Beacon Cove on Google MapsFeedback
Rated 5 out of 5
“Our bedroom is in one of the old Warberries villas and the back wall bows by about an inch and a half across four metres. Two national firms measured it, quoted, then went quiet. These came, measured, and said it needed scribing rather than filling. The wardrobes go right into the corner and there is no gap anywhere. My husband keeps running his hand down the join.”
Rated 5 out of 5
“We run a bar on the harbourside and needed the counter and back fittings replaced without losing a summer weekend. They built the lot off site, came in on a Sunday night and had us trading by Tuesday lunchtime. Knowing the whole thing was made before they ever shut our doors is what sold it.”
Rated 5 out of 5
“Sash windows on the front elevation, and we are in a conservation area so it had to be timber and it had to match. They took a profile off the original, made new boxes in accoya, and the planning side went through without a query. From the pavement you genuinely cannot tell which is which.”
Rated 5 out of 5
“Two alcoves either side of the chimney, and they turned out to be 40mm different in width, which explains why the flat-pack ones we tried first never sat right. Made as a pair but to two different sets of measurements. Small thing, but it is the difference between looking fitted and looking bought.”
Rated 5 out of 5
“We let our place out over the season so everything gets hammered. I asked them to over-specify the drawer runners and they did, and told me exactly which ones so I can order spares. Three summers in, nothing has sagged. The last kitchen we had did not last two.”
Budget
In the Lincombes the price is driven by height and exposure. Many villas stand on steep plots above the road, so upper-floor windows on the seaward side often need a scaffold tower or full scaffold, which is priced separately. A listed building such as Hesketh Crescent needs exact copies and sometimes consent drawings, which adds time. On the other side, careful repair is often cheaper than you think: replacing a rotten bottom rail or sill and keeping the rest of the sash costs a fraction of a new window. Ranges for full replacements are in our cost guide.
Guide ranges only, VAT included. Your figure comes from the measured visit and the drawing you sign off.
What moves the priceQuestions
Coverage
Most of our work sits inside Torbay, because fitted joinery needs at least two visits and often three. Further out we go as far as the drive stays sensible - Newton Abbot and Totnes are routine, and we have taken work down to the South Hams when the job justified it.
Book a survey and we will check the joinery on the side of your house that faces Meadfoot, tell you what can be repaired and what cannot, and give you a written, fixed price. Hotels and apartment blocks are welcome to call too.
