Beer is located within East Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Colyton Hundred. It falls within Honiton 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 1118 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website.

A parish history file is held in Seaton 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 Beer 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 83/15 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 83SE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SY228894. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SY28NW, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 029, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 192. Geological sheet 326 also covers the area.

Illustrations: The image below is of Beer as included in the Library's Etched on Devon's memory website. 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:

BEER is an attractive fishing village on a small bay, sheltered by the great chalk cliff of Beer Head (426ft.), the first of the chalk headlands on the English coast as one comes up-Channel. Beer was made a separate civil parish in 1894, and an ecclesiastical parish in 1905, but the church of St. Michael dates from 1877-8. It was built on the site of an older chapel.

The famous Beer quarries lie about three quarter miles W. of the village. That to the S. of the lane is the Old Quarry, which was worked intermittently from Roman times to the late 19th century it is entirely underground, and one needs permission and a guide to explore its ramifications. To anyone who is historically minded, this quarry, out of which have come Roman villas and public buildings, cathedrals, parish churches, country houses and cottages, right down to recent times, is one of the most exciting things in Devon. One passes through the dark hole in the rock face into a Roman ante-chamber, in which the tool-marks are still visible on the walls; then on into the Norman quarry, like a cathedral itself with its massive square pillars of stone supporting the roof, and the dark aisles and side-chapels opening on either hand; thence along the great nave, through spaces that produced stone for those chalk-white arcades and carved screens in the Devon country churches, for Exeter cathedral and Rochester castle, for St. Stephen's at Westminster and Exeter Guildhall, and for beautiful Tudor country houses like Bovey not so far away; and finally through choirs and chapels to the blank rock-face where eighteen centuries came to an end in total silence and darkness. It is a deeply impressive place when one calls to mind what strength and what sunlit beauty have come from its heart over so many centuries.

On the N. side of the lane is the New Quarry, also entirely underground, first opened in 1883 and in extent equal to that of the Old. Most of this stone seems to have been quarried for church restoration work. This quarry is now closed except for the manufacture of lime in the open approaches. Beer village contains much building in the local stone, some used externally in 17th century houses and still good. Bovey House lies NW. of the village beyond another group of old quarries. It came about 1300 to the Walronds (of Bradfield) who continued to own it until a marriage carried it to the Rolles by 1786. The present house, which is most attractive. is mainly of 16th century date (early and late). Further work was done in the 17th century, and some changes were also made about 1719. The house contains some notable 17th century plaster work. After the death of the last Mrs. Walrond (1786) the house was left unoccupied. Both it and the lane leading to it were said to be haunted, with the result that smuggling was successfully carried on here. The house was rescued again in 1868, but reroofed with slate and the walls somewhat cut down.

Jack Rattenbury (b. 1778), one of the most notable of Devon smugglers, was a native of Beer and operated from here. He published late in life his Memoirs of a Smuggler (Sidmouth, 1837) when gout had caused him to give up his career, and he ended his days peacefully as a contractor for blue-lias lime for Sidmouth harbour, helped also by a pension of a shilling a week from Lord Rolle.