Dawlish is located within Teignbridge local authority area. Historically it formed part of Exminster Hundred. It falls within Kenn 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 1424 in 1801 4584 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In the valuation of 1334 it was assessed at £02/18/00. The lay subsidy of 1524 valued the community at £13/12/08. In 1641/2 365 adult males signed the Protestation returns.

A parish history file is held in Dawlish 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 Dawlish 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 102/15,16 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 102SE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX960767. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX97NE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 031, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 192. Geological sheet 339 also covers the area.

Illustrations: The image below is of Dawlish 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:

DAWLISH takes its name from the little stream that now flows through the town, recorded as Dofiisc, "black stream," in a Saxon charter of 1044. The original village grew up nearly a mile back from the coast, for reasons of safety, and the parish church will be found here. Dedicated to St. Gregory the Great, and an ancient foundation, it is today a rather disappointing 19th century building. The nave was rebuilt 1824-5, the chancel in 1875. Only the red sandstone tower is of any age (14th century). The nave, in an early 19th century version of Gothic, is pleasing with its slender columns and bowed ceilings. There are some late 18th century mural tablets and many of the early 19th century, including two by Flaxman on the S. wall. Most are unctuous and Victorian, but they have their own soothing flavour.

Dawlish began to attract summer visitors in the early 1790s. Among others, Charles Hoare, the banker, was attracted by its climate and scenery. In 1800-4 John Nash built Luscombe Castle for him, about 1 m. W. of the church, combining the external appearance of "our ancient baronial fortresses" with all modern comforts inside. The grounds were laid out by Humphrey Repton, and command fine coastal views. The chapel was unfortunately added by Scott in 1862. Nash also built the villa of "Stonelands" in 1817, (Richardson and Gill, Regional Architecture 127, 133.) which became the home of Sir John Rennie, the eminent architect and engineer.

From about 1803 onwards the ground between the old village and the sea was being "landscaped," the stream straightened and broken by artificial waterfalls, and houses built along the N. side of the lawn. This street, the Strand, was practically completed by 1809, and still keeps a period flavour of Jane Austen, who knew and liked Dawlish very much. So also did Dickens, who placed the birthplace of Nicholas Nickleby here. In Old Town Street are the Manor House (c. 1800) and Brook House (c. 1800), and a relic of old Dawlish in a house dated 1539. At the upper end of the town is much excellent mid-Victorian villa architecture (e.g. Barton Terrace). In 1846 the railway came. Brunel was obliged to take his line along the sea-front (plates 6,7), but he carried his railway across the mouth of the Dawlish valley on a small granite viaduct in the Egyptian style leaving free access to the beach, and built an ornamental station which is itself a nice period-piece to-day.

The railway did not bring large crowds to Dawlish, nor did Dawlish set out to attract them. Within the past generation, however, it has become more widely known, both as a delightful place to live in and as a place for summer holidays. It is now a bright, cheerful little town of some 7,500 people, and has grown faster than any other Devonshire resort in the past twenty years.

At Cofton was anciently a chapel dedicated to St. Mary, first heard of in the 14th century it fell into disuse after the Reformation, until Dr. George Kendall, the noted Calvinistic preacher, who had been intruded into the rectory of Kenton and was ejected in 1662, took it over for his own use. There is a memorial to him in the chapel, which was rebuilt (Charles Fowler, architect) in 1839. Cockwood is a picturesque hamlet near the chapel, on the shore of the Exe estuary. It probably originated as a fishing place in the 13th century.

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