In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Dawlish like this:
DAWLISH, a town and a parish in Newton-Abbot district, Devon. The town stands at the mouth of a rivulet of its own name, on the coast, and on the South Devon railway, 3 miles NNE of Teignmouth. It was known, at Domesday, as Doelis or Doules; it remained, till about 1790, a small fishing village, ½ a mile up the rivulet; and it is now a handsome, picturcsque, and fashionable watering-place, extending down to the beach, and presenting three sides of a quadraugular area to the sea. ...
It partly occupies a fine valley, flanked by heights; and partly rejoices in a grand cove, about 1½ mile wide, overhung by tunnelled precipices, and terminated on one side by the Langstone Cliffs, on the other by the fantastic rocks called the Parson and Clerk. It is a seat of petty sessions and a coast-guard station; and has a head post office, ‡ a railway station with telegraph, three hotels, two churches, three dissenting chapels, public baths, assembly rooms, billiard and reading rooms, circulating libraries, a literary society, and a pleasure fair on Easter-Monday. The railway station is ornamental; and the railway viaduct across the rivulet has an Egyptian character. The parish church, at the upper end of the town, was rebuilt in 1825, at a cost of nearly £6, 000; and St. Mark's, in Brunswick Place, was built in 1850. The erection of a promenade pier was proposed in 1866. Pop. of the town, 3, 505. Houses, 680. -The parish includes also the hamlets of Cockwood, Middlewood, and Westwood. Acres, 5, 512; of which 495 are water. Real property, £20, 127; of which £324 are in gas-works. Pop., 4, 014. Houses, 795. The property is subdivided. The manor belonged at Domesday to the see of Exeter; and belongs now to the Dean and Chapter. The railway here traverses alternately five short tunnels and four spaces over-hung by lofty cliffs; and was momentarily overwhelmed, at one point, in 1853 by the fall of a mass of about 4, 000 tons, which carried a piece of it into the sea. The living is a vicarage, united with the p. curacy of St. Marks, in the diocese of Exeter. Value, £256.* Patrons, the Dean and Chapter of Exeter.
Dawlish through time
Dawlish is now part of Teignbridge district. Click here for graphs and data of how Teignbridge has changed over two centuries. For statistics about Dawlish itself, go to Units and Statistics.
GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Dawlish, in Teignbridge and Devon | Map and description, A Vision of Britain through Time.
URL: https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/450
Date accessed: 25th April 2024
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