E.Jecubes Parry

THE

HISTORY OF TORQUAY

BY

J. T. WHITE.

Illustrated.

(Entered at Stationers' Hall.)

TORQUAY:

PRINTED AT THE "DIRECTORY" OFFICE.

1878.

PREFACE.

EN the following pages I have endeavoured to give the history of the district which has been variously described as Thor, Tor, Tor Briwire, Tor Brewer, Fleete, Tor Key, Tormohun, Tor Moone, Tormoham, and Torquay. For all postal purposes, for traffic arrangements, government business, and hydrographical records, the town has been known as Torquay for nearly a hundred years; for parochial and local government purposes it has been known as Tormohun and Tormoham respectively. In 1876 the Local Board of Health obtained the sanction of Government to alter the name of the district from Tormoham to Torquay, and accordingly that name has been adopted as the title of this book.

The sources from which I have derived my information are the works of old and modern historians, manuscripts and deeds, charters and court rolls, the records of the State Paper Office, and likewise the Reports of the Historical Manuscript Commissioners. In addition, the parish books, the parish registers, the churchwardens' book, the minute books of the Select Vestry, the Improvement Commis sioners, and of the Torquay Local Board of Health, private letters, and the files of local newspapers, have been laid

under contribution. Besides this, from a long residence in Torquay, I have been enabled to obtain a considerable amount of oral testimony from old inhabitants. As a rule I have confined myself to the limits of the parish, excepting where the importance of the case has made it necessary for me to travel a little beyond in order to preserve a continuity in the record.

Some of my readers may consider the story of the Spanish Armada a little too prolix. In explanation I may say that I was advised to give it as fully as possible for many reasons. In the first place, the actual facts relating to the Spanish prize in Torbay are entirely unknown to the general public-the documents in reference thereto having only within recent years been rendered accessible; secondly, the traditionary statements respecting the fate of the Spanish crew are altogether erroneous; and thirdly, as the capture of this galleon was but a small episode in the ever memorable encounter in the Channel, historians have but briefly referred to it, their attention being naturally directed to the main issue. The incidents and details which they have omitted are of the greatest interest to those who reside on the Torbay littoral, and it is these particulars that I have endeavoured to furnish.

I have touched but lightly on the subjects of Kent's Cavern and Climate, as each has a literature of its own. J. T. WHITE.

Torquay, March, 1878.