The Gleneagles hotel in Torbay, on which the TV series Fawlty Towers was based, will be demolished to make way for new retirement flats. John Cleese based the TV sitcom on the Gleneagles after staying there with the Monty Python team in 1973.
 
Churchill Retirement Living will convert the site after its plans were approved by Torbay Council.
Former owner Donald Sinclair unwittingly became the inspiration for Cleese's character Basil Fawlty.
 
The 41-bedroom hotel ceased trading early this year and Churchill Retirement Living applied to use the site for 36 retirement apartments. The hotel closed its doors in 2015.
 
Planning officers allowed the change of use of the site from tourist accommodation to residential as the former hotel was found to be commercially unviable.
 
The twelve episodes of Fawlty Towers was voted number one in the British Film Institute's 100 Greatest Television Programmes in 2000. For the exterior filming, the Wooburn Grange Country Club in Buckinghamshire was used.