Torquay 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 1639 in 1801 31000 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. The lay subsidy of 1524 valued the community at £06/17/10. In 1641/2 67 adult males signed the Protestation returns. A turnpike was established in 1755. The community had a grammar school from 1928.

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 Torquay 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 116/14+ Six inch (1:10560) sheet 116SW+
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX930640. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX96SW+, 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 Torquay 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:

TORQUAY the best known of all the Devon seaside resorts, occupies a superb position on the N. promontory of Tor Bay, completely sheltered by higher ground from the N. and E. winds. It is a town almost entirely of 19th century growth, but a hamlet probably stood near the shore from medieval times. Torre Abbey, near by, built a small quay here. During the 17th and 18th centuries the English fleet frequently lay up in Tor Bay in preference to Plymouth Sound. The bay was large enough to take the whole fleet comfortably, and sheltered from all but E. and SE. winds. During the Napoleonic Wars, too, the fleet anchored here for long periods, so that officers had their wives and families brought down and found accommodation ashore for them at Tor Quay. The hamlet had indeed begun to attract attention as a summer watering place before the war, but the first real impetus to growth came with the fleet, and possibly also the civilian visitors who were debarred from the Continent. Still, there were fewer than 2,000 people in 1821. Then it was found that the town, besides being suited to summer visitors, also had a mild winter climate, and doctors despatched their consumptive patients to Torquay in great numbers. By 1841 there were nearly 6,000 people, and some elegant terraces were being built of which Hesketh Crescent to-day is perhaps the best example. The atmosphere of these years is well conveyed in a charming book: A Panorama of Torquay, by Octavian Blewitt, published in 1832. He tells us, among other things, that those who wished to avoid the fatigue of the long coach journey from London, travelled to Portsmouth by coach and there took the Brunswick-" a steam vessel of considerable power"--direct to Torquay. All this was immensely simplified by the coming of the railway in 1848, which led to even more rapid growth. By 1850 the town was calling itself "the Queen of Watering Places" and "the Montpellier of England," and its terraces and suburban villas extended for more than a mile along the N. shore of the bay. The period of most rapid growth was between 1841 and 1871, when the population rose by over 5,000 in each decade; and this has stamped Torquay architecturally as a mid-Victorian town. The layout of the town, as seen from the Bay, is a remarkably fine piece of planning, with wooded drives and terraces following the contours of the hill in sweeping convolutions. Much of this excellent planning was due to the Palks and the Carys who, between them, owned the greater part of the site, especially to Sir Lawrence Palk who set out to develop his property for an upper-class clientele. Among other improvements he enlarged and partly rebuilt the Royal Hotel (in 1828) and adapted it "for the reception of families of the first distinction." He also began the construction of the present Inner Harbour, and built terraces of lodging houses for genteel families. The Mallocks of Cockington, who were the other considerable landowners, resisted these changes for a long time. They did not want a town on their rural property, and they threw away a fortune rather than have it. Not until 1865 did one of them consent to grant a building lease, and that only to a family connection. (Mallock, Memoirs of life and literature, 10.) Growth slowed up in the 1870s and 1880s, mainly because the well-to-do, for whom Torquay catered to the exclusion of all others, now began to take their summer and winter holidays abroad. Meanwhile, the adjacent parish of St. Marychurch, on the N., had taken the overflow of Torquay, and had grown from 800 people at the beginning of the century to nearly 7,000 at the end. In the same period, Cockington had been transformed, in a milder degree, from a deep country parish to a villa-strewn suburb, though the old village remained untouched. In 1892 Torquay was incorporated as a municipal borough; in 1900 its boundaries were extended to take in Babbacombe, Chelston, Ilsham, and St. Mary-church; and in 1923 the parishes of Tormohun and St. Marychurch were united to form the new parish of Torquay. The village and parish of Cockington were taken in 1928. To-day the borough has rather more than 53,000 people. It extends 5 m. northwards almost to the mouth of the Teign, and includes 6,244 acres. The social and economic changes of the last generation have had their effects on Torquay. The winter visitors and the retired class are still an important element in the economy of the town, but the summer holiday trade is considerably more important than it ever was before and the town sets out to attract it in a restrained fashion. Torquay is losing, perhaps has already lost, its exclusive Victorian and Edwardian flavour and is falling more into line with the changed national economy; but whatever happens it can never become quite like other places, if only because of the unrivalled beauty of its site and its layout, and the lingering flavour of the large stuccoed villas and the winding tree shaded drives. Here one will find for a long time to come the haunting memories of Victorian peace, security, and comfort, that world that has vanished so completely from our ken almost. everywhere else.

Historically, Torquay consists of three ancient parishes Tor Mohun, St. Marychurch, and Cockington. Tor Mohun takes its name from the tor or conspicuous hill known as Tor Hill today, and its suffix from the Mohuns who acquired the manor from the Brewers in the 13th century. The village lay about a mile inland from the shore of the bay, which was named after it. Tor Mohun church (St. Saviour) is an undistinguished 15th century building, with a plain 14th century tower. It has been much altered and restored to meet the needs of the rising population of Torquay, but retains a strong early Victorian flavour. There is an imposing early 17th century monument erected by Sir Thomas Ridgeway to the memory of his father Thomas and his grandfather John (d. 1560). In the sanctuary is a brass to Wilmot, the wife of Sir George Carr (d. 1581). Near by is the tomb of Sir Thomas Cary, father of Sir George (d. 1567).

Torre Abbey was founded near the shore of the bay in 1196, and was at the Dissolution the richest Premonstratensian house in England. Considerable remains of the monastic buildings are to be seen, including the late 12th century entrance to the chapter house, the early 14th century gatehouse, the guest hall, and the great barn. The present house of Torre Abbey is 17th and 18th century in date. The Abbey site was bought in 1599 by Thomas Ridgeway, ancestor of the earls of Londonderry. The Ridgeways held it only until 1653, when they sold it to Sir John Stowell, who re-sold it in 1662 to Sir George Cary. The Carys remained at Torre Abbey until very recently, and when they sold out the Torquay Corporation acquired the house and site as a museum. The Carys were one of the few great Catholic families of Devon, and converted the guest hall of the abbey into a chapel for Catholic worship, which was so used from 1779 until 1854. Torre Abbey was built as a country house by the Carys, for the Ridgeways had built themselves a house at Torwood in 1579, since demolished and replaced by a Victorian manor house of 1862, though some traces of the Elizabethan house remain. At Ilsham Manor (so styled) is another relic of the abbey part of its medieval grange, embedded in Victorian surroundings.

The manor of Torwood was distinct from that of Torre, and was bought in 1768 by Sir Robert Palk, an Ashburton man who had made a great fortune in India and returned to his native Devon as a country gentleman. His purchase of the manor was momentous for the later development of Torquay, and for his descendants' fortunes, for on this land and that of the Carys of Torre Abbey the town was systematically and carefully "developed." The Palks made a second great fortune, this time out of an English town, and dominated the town as long as they retained their interests here, which they did until 1914. Though the Carys went on a little longer, and lived in Torquay all the time (which the Palks did not) they had far less influence on the town's history. It was the Palks who really created Torquay and gave it its distinctive appearance and social flavour.

The churches of Torquay deserve some special attention. St. John's on a remarkable site cut into the hillside, is the most notable. It was first built in 1823, but rebuilt on a larger scale by G. E. Street in 1861-7. It has some fine qualities and there are those who greatly admire it; but others may find the total effect of the internal decoration somewhat restless and fussy. It has always been the "high church" and has a stormy if short history, being the scene of the first of the 19th century "ritual prosecutions." Those who find these things entertaining (and anything connected with the formidable Bishop Phillpotts has its fascination) will find a good history of the church by Preb. J. S. Boggis, and an excellent smaller guide on the spot.

All Saints' Church at Babbacombe is by Butterfield (1867); the Catholic church at St. Marychurch by Hansom. The ancient parish church of St. Mary- church (St. Mary) was rebuilt in 1861, except the tower. The latter was rebuilt in 1872 as a memorial to Bishop Phillpotts (1778-1869) who is buried in the churchyard. Phillpotts had built himself a palace at Torquay, where he preferred to live, which he called Bishopstowe (now the Palace Hotel). The church at St. Marychurch was greatly damaged during the 1939-45 war by enemy aircraft.

The little village of Cockington still stands unspoilt, beyond the suburbs of Torquay, and is famous even among Devon villages for its beauty. Cockington Court is a house of 16th and 17th century date, delightfully placed in a small park. It was the home of the Carys from the time of Richard II until they were forced to sell out to the Mallocks in 1654. It continued with the Mallocks down to 1927. W. H. Mallock's Memoirs of Life and Literature has some good pages on life here in his early days. The mansion and park were acquired by the Torquay Corporation in 1935 for the sum of £50,000.

The church (St. George and St. Mary) is a charming building, mainly of 14th and 15th century date; the tower is chiefly 13th century The pulpit came from Tor Mohun church, where it was rescued from destruction in 1825. Other features of the church are the fine restored rood-screen, the 15th century font with its enriched Jacobean cover, the carved bench-ends under the tower and two 15th century stalls with misereres in the chancel, and a certain amount of medieval glass in two windows.