The earliest photographs of historic Bideford Quay show a long established eighteenth century hotel with graceful upstairs bow windows and a large front door to welcome the weary traveller.
In the 1990s, as ocean-going vessels still dock at the Quay, Tantons Hotel – now a listed building – offers an even warmer welcome and first-class accommodation to visitors.
Local legend says that the gilded ship’s figurehead above the hotel entrance was the deposit paid by an impoverished ship’s captain for repairs to his sailing ship when Bideford was one of England’s busiest ports.
