hunting estate. Its name came from a Picard word meaning "corner", and was originally applied to the area of coast, where the estuary of the Canche river forms a sharp angle when it meets the English Channel. It became known as "Paris by the sea", and strict building regulations encouraged architects to create imaginative and innovative developments. In 1894 John Robinson Whitley and Allen Stoneham bought a stretch of coastal land, through their company Le Touquet Syndicate Ltd, and developed the town into a golf and gambling resort. Resort and the wealthy British From the outset, Le Touquet proved to be an attractive resort destination for affluent British travelers. In 1909, H. G. Wells and Amber Reeves fled to Le Touquet in an abortive elopement. The two returned to Britain after a number of weeks and Reeves later gave birth to Wells's daughter, Anna-Jane Blanco White, after the relationship ended. In the 1920s, Noël Coward and the "smart set" from England spent weekends there, and commissioned more outstanding villa designs echoing traditional and ultra-modern domestic styles. The architecture was both eclectic and playful, integrating numerous influences (e.g. anglo-normand, picard and expressionist).:46 Today the town tourism office offers guided tours to see outstanding examples of 19th- and 20th-century domestic architecture, which are now preserved and protected. Sayaji Rao III Gaekwar of Baroda also owned a house here. P. G. Wodehouse lived in Le Touquet from 1934 to 1940 until he was interned by the German army. World War I Le Touquet sheltered thousands of refugees from other parts of northern France and from Belgium during World War I. The municipal services of Ypres and of Dixmude took up residence there during the hostilities. In total, Le Touquet received 6,000 Belgian citizens during the war. The neighboring commune of Étaples was the site of a military base that functioned as an important staging area and training ground for British troops being moved into combat zones. It housed some 60,000 soldiers at any given time, making it the largest military camp in Europe during the conflict. About 2 million soldiers passed through it during the war. It was notorious for its extreme lack of comfort, unsanitary conditions and its poorly designed military training programme. In 1917, the base was the scene of an uprising — the Étaples mutiny. While the British officers were comfortably billeted in Le Touquet, the city was out of