Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for TORQUAY

TORQUAY, a town and four chapelries in Tor-Moham parish, Devon. The town stands on a cove of Tor bay, and on the Dartmouth and Torbay railway, 2¼ miles W by S of Hope Nose, and 7 miles SSE of Newton-Abbot; is statistically conterminate with Tor-Moham parish, but really excludes large rural sections of the parish; was a mere fishing-village prior to the great war with France; became the residence of numerous families connected with the Channel fleet under Lord St. Vincent; attracted extensive notice, through them, for the beauty of its views, the excellence of its climate, and its general amenities for seaside residence and seaside bathing; rose rapidly into importance as a resort of invalids, sea-bathers, and summer rusticators; ranks now as one of the very finest watering-places in the world; stands partly in sheltered valleys, partly on breezy hills; covers more ground, in proportion to its population, than perhaps any other town in England; contains only one main street, and only a small-aggregate of rows of houses; consists chiefly of isolated edifices and multitudinous villas, interspersed with gardens, and spread out like an architectural forest; presents a general aspect of mingled elegance and picturesqueness; commands, from the summit of Beacon hill and from other vantage-grounds, a magnificent prospect over sea and land; affords to invalids a choice of climate and of other advantages, in wide gradation from its lower to its higher sites; is a seat of petty sessions; publishes two weekly newspapers; and has a head post-office,‡ a r. station with telegraph, a banking office, seven hotels, numerous lodging and boarding houses, a great bathing establishment, a town hall, a public hall for lectures and concerts, club and reading rooms, subscription and assembly-rooms, a theatre, public gardens, a market place, a small harbour with a pier used as a promenade, four churches, six dissenting chapels, a Roman Catholic chapel, a mechanics' institute, a natural history society, a school of art, national schools, an infirmary, a dispensary, an hospital for consumptive patients, and other institutions. The Lands' End hotel was built in 1866, at a cost of more than £30,000; and contains 135 rooms. The bathing-establishment was constructed in 1855-7, with vast labour of excavation and of building; presents an elegant exterior, in the Roman Doric style; includes prime and ample bathing appliances, together with magnificent reading and assembly-rooms; and adjoins a terrace overlooking the bay. Upton or St. Mary Magdalen's church is a fine modern edifice, in the early English style, of Devonshire limestone faced with Caen stone; and has a spire of white Bath stone-St. Luke's church was built in 1863; and is a picturesque structure, in the decorated English style. Markets are held on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays; a fair, on Easter Monday; and a regatta, in Aug.-The chapelries are Upton, St-John, Trinity, and St. Luke. The living of Upton is a rectory, and the other livings are p. curacies, in the diocese of Exeter. Value of Upton, £250; of St. John, £207; of the others, not reported. Patron of Upton, Sir L. Palk, Bart.; of Trinity, the Rev. R. Fayle; of St. John and St. Luke, the Incumbent of Tor-Moham.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a town and four chapelries"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Devon AncC
Place: Torquay

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