Dawlish

Description

Dawlish is located at the outlet of a small river, Dawlish Water (also called The Brook), between Permian red sandstone cliffs, and is fronted by a sandy beach with the South Devon Railway sea wall and the Riviera Line railway above. Behind this is a central public park, The Lawn, through which Dawlish Water flows.

Immediately to the south-west of Dawlish is a headland, Lea Mount, with Boat Cove at its foot and Coryton Cove, the furthest part of the beach accessible by the sea wall path behind it. To the north-east, via the beach or sea wall, the coast can be followed for around 1.5 mi to Langstone Rock and the resort of Dawlish Warren beyond.

Dawlish is also known for its black swans (Cygnus atratus), introduced from Western Australia, which live with other exotic waterfowl in a small urban sanctuary on Dawlish Water. There are several attractions in and around the town, including beaches, safari mini-golf, a waterfowl centre, a theatre, a leisure centre with a pool, a countryside park and the Dawlish Museum.

Toponymy

The name Dawlish derives from a Welsh river name meaning black stream. There was also a Roman translation of Dolfisc, meaning 'Dark river' and 'The Devils Water'. It was first recorded in 1044 as Doflisc. By 1086, it was Dovles; in 1302, Dovelish; and by 1468 it had become the more recognisable Dawlisshe.

History

Before Dawlish itself was settled, fishermen and salt makers came down from the higher ground where they lived, to take advantage of the natural resources available on the coast hereabouts. They built salterns to produce salt and stored it in sheds nearby. The unpredictable nature of the stream, Dawlish Water, during floods is likely to have led to nearby Teignmouth being the preferred site for salt-making, and the practice stopped at Dawlish during the Anglo-Saxon period (400–1000 CE).

The earliest settlement at Dawlish grew up almost a mile away from the coast, around the area where the parish church is today. There is evidence of early settlements at Aller Farm, Smallacombe, Lidwell and at Higher and Lower Southwood, where the ground would have been fertile and not subject to flooding.

The land that includes present-day Dawlish was granted by Edward the Confessor to Leofric, later the first Bishop of Exeter, in 1044. After the Norman Conquest, Leofric gave the land to the Diocese of Exeter, which held it until it was sold, in 1802.

Little of note happened at Dawlish until the end of the 18th century,

In the first decade of the 19th century, the land between the original settlement and the sea was "landscaped"; the stream was straightened, small waterfalls were built into it, and it was flanked by a broad lawn and rows of new houses: The Strand on the north side and Brunswick Place on the south. The layout survives remarkably unchanged today, despite severe damage from a torrent of water coming down Dawlish Water from the Haldon Hills on the night of 10 November 1810.

Also worth noting are Manor House and Brook House (both about 1800) and some of the cottages in Old Town Street surviving from the old village. Dawlish's transformation from a fishing settlement to a watering hole for Victorian celebrities is documented at the Dawlish Museum.

Brunel's railway

In 1830, Isambard Kingdom Brunel designed an atmospheric railway, which operated on a pneumatic principle, using a 15-inch iron tube. One of the pumping stations was in this town. The line ran right along the seafront, but Brunel ensured that the line was carried across the mouth of the stream on a small granite viaduct, leaving access to the beach.

The railway opened on 30 May 1846 between and . The first passenger train ran in September 1847, but the project was besieged with problems mainly with the leather sealing valve; after 12 months of use, it needed replacing at a cost of £25,000. South Devon Railway directors abandoned the project in favour of conventional trains.

Literary connections

After visiting Sidmouth in 1801, Jane Austen spent a long holiday at Dawlish in 1802, later complaining about its "particularly pitiful and wretched library." She mentioned it several times in her 1811 novel Sense and Sensibility. In Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby (1838–39), the protagonist inherits a small farm near Dawlish. The novelist and poet Margaret Holford died in Dawlish on 11 September 1852, aged 84. On 23 March 1818, the Romantic poet John Keats walked the three miles from Teignmouth to Dawlish to visit the Easter Monday fair and subsequently wrote a poem entitled Dawlish Fair, which details a fantasy of seducing a Devon woman.

Transport

Railway

Dawlish railway station, situated in the town centre and next to the beach, is served by two train operating companies:

• Great Western Railway operates regular stopping trains on a route between , and . Some inter-city services between , Paignton and stop here, as well as some services between , , Plymouth and .
• CrossCountry services between Manchester Piccadilly and Paignton stop here twice a day in each direction.

The line includes one of the most memorable stretches of British track for its natural environment, but at high cost; a constant battle with sea erosion makes it one of the dearest lines in the country to maintain. For example, a storm in 1974 washed away much of the station's down platform; also, in the UK storms of January–February 2014, waves brought down the sea wall and washed away a section of line, leaving the permanent way suspended.

The 2014 storm raised questions about the vulnerability of the South Devon Railway sea wall to storm damage and proposals were made to route Plymouth-bound rail services further inland; these were reopening the disused railway line via Okehampton and Tavistock, reopening the former Teign Valley Line or reviving a 1930s GWR project to construct the Dawlish Avoiding Line. In May 2019, Network Rail began a project to improve the sea defences along the sea wall at Marine Parade, south of the station, promising a wider, more accessible walkway with seating and lighting, and greater protection from the sea; it was completed on 3 July 2023.

Roads

The A379 road between Exeter, Teignmouth, Torbay, Dartmouth and Plymouth runs through the town, parallel to the railway line.

Buses

Buses in the town are operated predominantly by Stagecoach South West. Key routes are:

• 2 from Exeter to Newton Abbot, via Teignmouth
• 11 from Dawlish Warren to Torquay
• 186, which links the town centre, hospital and Sainsbury's to the main housing areas; this is operated by Country Bus (Newton Abbot).

Climate

Dawlish has a mild, oceanic climate bordering on a warm to cool Mediterranean climate, according to the Köppen climate classification, with low precipitation in the summer period and high rainfall in the winter. Often termed the "English Riviera" along with Teignmouth and Torbay, Dawlish rarely has snow or frost and grows outdoor subtropical plants such as palms, olives, bananas and lemons. Temperatures over 30C or under 0C are infrequent. It is one of the sunniest places in Britain, with an average of nearly 1,800 hours a year. Despite more favourable conditions in the summer, the wet autumn and winter can bring copious amounts of rain; when areas of low pressure move up the English Channel, easterly winds with dramatic storm surges and waves along the seafront.

Local produce

During the early and middle part of the 20th century, Dawlish became known for Devon Violets perfume. Hundreds of varieties were grown in market gardens surrounding the town. Violet escapees can be found growing wild across the area. Lately the town has become known for growing dianthus, freesias, daffodils, tomatoes and strawberries.

Retail and employment

Centred on The Strand, Queen Street, Brunswick Place and Park Road, Dawlish has typical retail facilities for a resort town with gift shops, cafes, a fishing tackle shop, beach/toy shops, bakeries, restaurants and pubs, haberdasheries, ice-cream shops including Gay's Creamery, national chains and independent retailers. Along Piermont Place, by Dawlish station and the sea front, are further ice-cream shops, a restaurant, a cafe and a sports-bar with outdoor seating areas. In recent years, a number of art, craft and antiques shops have opened. At the north-eastern end of the town, there is a Sainsbury's supermarket with an Argos outlet and a petrol station.

The largest employment sector in the town is health and social work (23%), due to a large number of care homes, followed by accommodation and food services (20%).

Religion

The town's places of worship are:

• Hope Church (DCF)
• Dawlish Baptist Church
• Dawlish Methodist Church
• Dawlish Strand Church (United Reformed)
• St Agatha's Church (Roman Catholic)
• St Gregory's Church (Anglican)

Education

The primary schools in Dawlish are:

• Gatehouse Primary School
• Westcliff Primary School
• Orchard Manor School.

Dawlish College, formerly Dawlish Community College, in Elm Grove Road, is the main secondary school.

Oakwood Court College is a specialist residential college based in Dawlish, with a satellite college in Torpoint.

Governance

Locally, Dawlish is governed by Dawlish Town Council, which is currently controlled by the Liberal Democrats, as is the next local-government layer above, Teignbridge District Council. Dawlish lies in the parliamentary constituency of Newton Abbot, represented since 2024 by Martin Wrigley of the Liberal Democrats.

Twinning

Dawlish is twinned with the Breton commune of Carhaix-Plouguer in France.

Notable people

• Thomas Vowler Short (1790–1872), academic and clergyman, & Bishop of Sodor and Man and Bishop of St Asaph.
• Herman Merivale (1806–1874), an English civil servant and historian.
• Robert J. Shuttleworth (1810–1874), an English botanist and malacologist.
• Colonel Sir Arthur George Hammond, (1843–1919), recipient of the Victoria Cross
• H. O. Arnold-Forster (1855–1909), a British politician and writer.
• Benjamin Haughton (1865–1924) landscape artist
• Captain Henry Singleton Pennell (1874–1907), recipient of the Victoria Cross
• Igerna Sollas (1877–1965), a British zoologist, palaeontologist and geologist
• Aylward M. Blackman (1883–1956), an Egyptologist, who excavated in Egypt and Nubia, notably Buhen and Meir.
• Paul Britten Austin (1922–2005), author, translator, broadcaster, administrator and scholar of Swedish literature.
• Sir Adrian Frederick Melhuish Smith, PRS (born 1946), statistician and chief executive of the Alan Turing Institute.

References

References

1. "Dawlish Town Council".
2. "Dawlish".
3. "Dawlish (Parish, United Kingdom) - Population Statistics, Charts, Map and Location".
4. [http://www.dawlish.gov.uk/swans.php Black Swans and other waterfowl] {{webarchive. link. (23 April 2015, Dawlish Town Council.)
5. Watts, Victor. (2010). "The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-names". [[Cambridge University Press]].
6. "Dawlish History Introduction". Dawlish.com.
7. Hoskins, W.G.. (1972). "A New Survey of England: Devon". Collins.
8. Worth, R.N.. (1895). "A History of Devonshire". Elliot Stock.
9. Robinson, A. "Finds record for: PUBLIC-162E15". The Portable Antiquities Scheme.
10. (1984). "Devon's Age of Elegance". Devon Books.
11. (1989). "The Buildings of England – Devon". Penguin.
12. Hadfield, Charles. (1967). "Atmospheric Railways". David & Charles.
13. "Jane Austen... Dawlish and Sidmouth". Devon Libraries.
14. "Jane Austen Gazetteer – Sense and Sensibility – Dawlish, Devonshire". [[Republic of Pemberley.
15. (2 June 2024). "Train Times". Great Western Railway.
16. (2 June 2024). "Timetables". CrossCountry.
17. (13 October 2004). "Railway cliff scheme 'on target'". BBC News.
18. (27 October 2005). "Weather could wash away rail link". BBC News.
19. Chris Ledgard. (27 May 2006). "Brunel railway faces up to the sea". BBC News.
20. Kay, Peter. (1991). "Exeter – Newton Abbot: A Railway History". Platform 5.
21. (13 October 2004). "Dawlish railway repairs halted over safety fears". BBC News.
22. "UK storms wash away railway line and leave thousands without power".
23. Turner, Lauren. (7 February 2014). "How do you fix the Dawlish problem?". BBC News.
24. "Find out more about plans to protect vital railway artery to the South West". Network Rail.
25. (3 July 2023). "Works complete on vital £82 million sea wall to protect coastal Dawlish rail route". Gov.uk.
26. "Dawlish Bus Services". Bus Times.
27. (2021). "Devon lemons: The micro-climate of South Devon and citrus fruit cultivation". Weather.
28. Dawlish weather site [http://www.dawlishweather.co.uk/history/DawlishWeatherAverages.htm Dawlish Climate Averages (2005–2018)] {{Webarchive. link. (3 February 2017)
29. "Hope Church Website".
30. "Welcome to Dawlish Baptist Church".
31. "Welcome to Dawlish Strand Church".
32. "St Agatha Church".
33. A Church Near You [https://www.achurchnearyou.com/dawlish-st-gregory/ Retrieved 5 June 2017.] {{Webarchive. link. (18 June 2012)
34. "Welcome to Gatehouse Primary Academy".
35. "Welcome to Westcliff Primary School".
36. "Welcome to Orchard Manor School".
37. "Welcome to Dawlish College".
38. "Welcome to Oakwood Specialist College".
39. "British Towns Twinned with French Towns". Complete France.
40. {{Cite DNB
41. {{Cite EB1911
42. {{Cite DNB
43. {{cite DNB12