Salcombe
Salcombe is located within South Hams local authority area. Historically it formed part of Stanborough Hundred. It falls within Woodleigh 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 1056 in 1801 2167 in 1901 2187 in 1991. Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. The lay subsidy of 1524 valued the community at £49/10/08. In 1641/2 304 adult males signed the Protestation returns. Borough in Malborough 1640.
A parish history file is held in Salcombe Library. 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 Salcombe 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 136/15 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 136SE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX737390. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX73NW, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Outdoor Leisure 20, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 202. Geological sheet 355 also covers the area.
Illustrations: The image below is of Salcombe as included in the Library's illustrations collection. Other images can be searched for on the local studies catalogue.
Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:
SALCOMBE is a small seaport and holiday town on the W. side of the Kingsbridge estuary and about 1 m. from its mouth. The climate is perhaps the mildest in Devon, and the scenery of extreme beauty. It began to attract residents in the later years of the 18th century, The Moult (the house of the historian Froude) being the first of the "villas" to be built, in 1764. Woodville (now Woodcot), where Froude died, was built in 1797. The Grange is also a late 18th century house. Such houses were rare, however, for even in 1822 Lysons describes Salcombe as "a fishing town" with three shipwrights' yards, and a Whitsuntide fair for trinkets, sweetmeats, etc. It began to grow more rapidly in the 1840s, especially after the opening of the railway at Kingsbridge in 1893. It is now chiefly a yachting and fishing centre and offers little to day visitors.
The church (Holy Trinity) was built in 1843-4, enlarged in 1889, and calls for no comment. Salcombe Castle (Fort Charles) was erected by Henry VIII as part of the defences of the southern coast of England, and withstood sieges during the Civil War. The remains consist chiefly of one tower.
Batson is an attractive hamlet at the head of a creek. Batson Hall, an old farmhouse, was formerly a "mansion" and is recorded in Domesday Book. Ilbertstow, farther down the creek on the N. side, has some medieval work, and an E. wing added in 1784.
