Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for PAIGNTON

PAIGNTON, a village, a parish, and a sub-district, in Totnes district, Devon. The village stands on the coast, at the central part of the semi-circle of Torbay, and on the Dartmouth railway, 5 miles S S W of Torquay; dates from remote times; is now a seat of petty sessions, and a fashionable watering-place; includes numerous newvillas and recent extensions; and has a head post-office, ‡designated Paignton, North Devon, a railway station with telegraph, a good inn, a coast-guard station, a piererected in 1838, a fine bathing beach, a church, four dissenting chapels, a national school, an endowed school with £30 a year, and charities £76. The church is ancient; consists of nave, aisles, and transepts, with a tower; has a rich Norman door; is later English in the windows, and in the upper part of the tower; and contains a richly ornamented stone pulpit, and a screen of elegant tabernacle work. The dissenting chapels are for Independents, Baptists, Wesleyans, and Plymouth Brethren. Cattle fairs are held on the 3d Monday of every month; a fair of three days' duration begins on Whit-Monday; an export trade in cider and cabbages is carried on; and vessels of 150 tons come to the pier. The parish contains also the hamlets of Blagdon, Collaton-Kirkham, Good-rington, Polsham, Preston, and Yalberton. Acres, 5,092. Real property, £16, 730. Pop. in 1851, 2, 746; in 1861, 3,090. Houses, 613. The property is subdivided. The manor belonged anciently to the bishops of Exeter; was conveyed by Bishop Veysey to the Earl of Pembroke; went by sale in 1644, to Sir H. Cary, in 1654 to S. Kelland, Esq.; and has long been held by the family of Templers. A palace of the Bishops stood adjacent to the churchyard; was last occupied by Miles Coverdale; and has left some slight remains. The parish is famous for very large and superior cabbages. The living is a vicarage, united with the p. curacy of Marldon, in the diocese of Exeter. Value, £665.* Patron, alternately Sir S. Northcote and J. Templer, Esq. The p. curacy of Collaton is a separate benefice.—The sub-district contains also two other parishes. Acres, 10, 494. Pop., 4, 266. Houses, 872.


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

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a village, a parish, and a sub-district"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Paignton CP/AP       Paignton SubD       Totnes RegD/PLU       Devon AncC
Place: Paignton

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