Paignton
Paignton is located within Torbay local authority area. Historically it formed part of Haytor Hundred. It falls within Ipplepen Deanery for ecclesiastical purposes. The Deaneries are used to arrange the typescript Church Notes of B.F.Cresswell which are held in the Westcountry Studies Library. The population was 1575 in 1801 8365 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In the valuation of 1334 it was assessed at £06/00/00. The lay subsidy of 1524 valued the community at £30/07/08. In 1641/2 344 adult males signed the Protestation returns. It is recorded as a borough from 1295. A market is recorded from 14 cent.
You can look for other material on the community by using the place search on the main local studies database. Further historical information is also available on the Genuki website.
Maps: The image below is of the Paignton area on Donn's one inch to the mile survey of 1765.
On the County Series Ordnance Survey mapping the area is to be found on 1:2,500 sheet 122/5,9 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 122NW,SW
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX890610. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX85NE,SE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 031, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 202. Geological sheet 350 also covers the area.
Illustrations: The image below is of Paignton as included in the Library's illustrations collection. Other images can be searched for on the local studies catalogue.
A fair is known from: 14c.-1822. An extract from The glove is up! Devon's historic fairs, by Tricia Gerrish,is included by kind permission of the author
PAIGNTON FAIR LOCATION: A380/A3022. One of the three principal resorts of Torbay, South Devon.
ORIGINAL CHARTER: c.1294 Granted by Edward I to Bishop of Exeter and Thomas, Lord of Peynton for 3 day fair at Holy Trinity.
The Bishop of Exeter and Thomas, Lord of Paignton, or Peynton, were granted the first fairs charter: for a three day event to celebrate Holy Trinity, eight weeks after Easter. These were held near the Bishop’s Palace in an area known today as Palace Place. In 1822 a holiday fair is recorded for Tuesday in Whit week, believed to have been in existence in 1809. There is no mention of fairs in either of Owen’s 1792 or 1824 lists, which suggests that the 19th century Whit Tuesday event was no longer a trading fair. Faired ceased altogether during the late 20th century; a brief revival had occurred in 1954.
Paignton's original fair had a Court Leet to adminster social justice and the right to erect stalls etc, at a cost of 10 shillings a year to traders. When Holy Trinity Fair was revived in 1954 by the Devonshire Association of Drake's Men, Court Leet was a feature of the proceedings. In a re-enacted scene, one Susan Goodrich was brought before it, charged with refusing to have her ale tasted. She told Court Leet that, owing to her arrest, the fair dinner was spoiling at her inn. As many of the assembled worthies were planning to eat it, she was quickly released. Records of Courts Baron and Leet from the 1660s had been consulted, to ensure that this was based on a true event.
Early references: in Transactions of the Devonshire Association and in Trewman's Exeter Flying Post described the making and transporting of one of Paignton's famous plum puddings, for Whit Tuesday fair day. They were recent revivals of an ancient
custom. Paignton's 1294 charter was, by repute, subject to a 'white pot' - making a giant pudding every 50 years. 'Seven years to make, seven years to bake and seven to eat', according to Dr James Yonge in the 17th century. The fair puddings were noted throughout the West country for their size.
Recipes during the 19th century cite 100lb flour, 170lb beef suet, 140lb raisins and 20 dozen eggs as typical contents for the Paignton Pudding. A local brewer’s furnace was often used to boil the resulting mixture. One giant, made to celebrate the arrival of the railway at Paignton in 1859, was made in eight sections, piled pyramid-fashion on a wagon, pulled by eight horses, and transported to Paignton Green (by then the site of Paignton's fairs). The two thousand crowd present for the railway celebrations stormed the wagon, snatching handfuls of pudding, some of which found its way all over England by post.
Paignton's early 19th century Whit week fairs were also noted for wrestling contests: with a purse of 10 guineas on offer in 1819, and for other sports.
Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:
PAIGNTON a flourishing seaside town on the shores of Tor Bay, has trebled in size since 1900 and now has some 25,000 people. A hundred years ago it was described in White's Directory as "a neat and improving village andbathing place," which had "risen into notice as a place of resort for invalids during the last fifteen years, and is capable of being made a first-rate watering place. .." But it was still chiefly a farming parish, noted for the excellence of its cider of which great quantities were shipped to London and elsewhere, and for its very large and sweet cabbages, called "Paignton cabbages" which were sent all over the county. The real rise of the town as a seaside resort dates from late Victorian times. The railway reached the village in 1859; and in the last 40 years of the century the population trebled (8,385 in 1901).
Paignton was an ancient village, founded about 1 m. inland from the shore, possibly by Saxon colonists who arrived by sea. Before the Norman Conquest the large and fertile manor had come into the possession of the bishops of Exeter. They had a palace here, of which some small remains of 14th century date may be seen near the church. Under the bishops of Exeter and Paignton acquired in 1295 a weekly market and a three-day fair at the festival of the Holy Trinity; and a borough appears to have been set up about the same time. Much of the old village remains around the parish church, chiefly Church St., Kirkham St., Well St., and Winner St., in all of which 16th and 18th century cottages may be seen.
The parish church (St.John) was the mother-church of a large district which formerly included the parishes of Marldon and Stoke Gabriel. There are considerable remains of the 12th century church, chiefly the N. and S. rubble walls of the chancel, the red sandstone font, and the W. doorway of the tower. This doorway is, however, not in its original position. The church was almost entirely rebuilt in red sandstone in the early 15th century, possibly during the episcopate of Lacy (1420-55), whose arms appear in the painted glass of the N. aisle. It contains a late medieval stone pulpit, richly carved. The stone screen to the Kirkham chapel in the S. transept has been barbarously mutilated but is still beautiful. It was erected c. 1526 by the Kirkhams of Blagdon, and is elaborately canopied. The interior ceiling is particularly notable, with its "exquisite vine-leaf enrichment whose fragile beauty is a masterpiece of execution." The sculptured panels are also noteworthy. Oldway, a mansion of 115 rooms, was built for Singer, the sewing-machine millionaire, in 1874 at a cost of over £100,000 (architect, G. S. Bridgeman). The family ceased to live there in 1914 and after being put to various uses the house and grounds were bought by the town in 1945 for £45,000. It only remains to add that this palatial and opulent house was called The Wigwam when it was first built.
Blagdon Barton, 2 m. W. of Paignton, was the seat of the Kirkhams from the reign of Edward I until the 17th century It is one of the most interesting of the smaller medieval "mansions" of Devon, retaining as it does its 14th century hall, screen, etc. The house was remodelled in I567 and again early in the 18th century. (A detailed architectural account of Blagdon will be found in D.A. 69 (1937), 479-82.)The adjoining farm has tremendous cathedral-like barns and other buildings around a courtyard, as be-fitted a former estate of more than 1,000 acres.
