Last weekend brought the peak of the year’s holiday traffic to North Devon.

By rail and road, thousands of visitors arrived to take up their booking at hotels, guest houses and holiday centres, and large numbers were passing through in the course of tours of the SW.
Traffic reached record proportions on all main roads, with inevitable delays
Inquiries among Bideford hoteliers indicated that they were ‘fully booked’. At the New Inn Hotel, Mr Tom Pennington said “The town is certainly full of visitors, many of them inquiring for accommodation but we’ve nothing to offer except for the odd room between reservations”.
Mrs Middleton of the Royal Hotel also anticipated ‘capacity business from now on’. Generally it was the same story from other districts. At Hartland Quay Hotel it was stated that business had been building up over the past weeks, with people seeking accommodation having to be refused.
At the West Country Inn, on the trunk road, a spokesman said that one night last week at many as 50 people had to be turned away as all accommodation there was taken.
In Torrington, Mrs Harman of the Globe Hotel also confirmed that business was increasing rapidly, with demand for rooms exceeding supply.
The manager of the Torville Camp, Westward Ho! while also reporting that he was fully booked, thought that the influx was not quite so great as last year, estimating he was having to refuse about 70 a week as against 150 twelve months ago.
At the Seagate Hotel, Appledore, the arrival on Saturday morning of a telegram cancelling reservations for five people did not present the proprietor with any difficulty in filling the vacancies.

The full Gazette article is dated 8 August 1958