AS Dawlish celebrates the Platinum Jubilee of Her Majesty The Queen, it has been remembered that she visited the town as a child.

With her sister Princess Margaret, the youngsters came to the town with their mother, then Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, in the late 1920s and 1930s.

As children, the princesses visited their mother’s aunt, Lady Violet Cavendish-Bentick who then lived at Weech House.

Little documentary evidence exists regarding their visits as, at the time, Princess Elizabeth was not expected to accede to the throne.

It is believed the sisters and their mother visited her aunt a number of times.

It is also thought the Queen Mother had also spent her honeymoon after her wedding to Prince Albert, ‘Bertie, in 1923, in Dawlish although official records say they spent their honeymoon in Surrey and Scotland.

Historian David Force has written about the Royal connections to Dawlish.

He said: ‘They did visit from time to time and it is said the Queen Mother spent part of her honeymoon in Dawlish but it is not definite and was heard as hearsay.

‘Lady Violet was known to live in Weech Road, the original cottage burned down and was rebuilt.

‘Back then Dawlish was quite a prestigious town and place to live and before the First World War there were big houses owned by the gentry.’

It is known that Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret and their mother, then the Duchess of York, attended the funeral of Lady Violet in about 1931.

Lady Violet was well-known in the town as an eccentric lady who used to ride into town in a small carriage pulled by a Shetland pony to do her shopping and meet friends.

At the time of the funeral, the Queen’s father Prince Albert, the Duke of York, was the younger sibling of Edward Windsor, who was to become King Edward VIII.

By 1937, he had abdicated and Albert acceded to the throne as King George VI.