Kingswear

What's In A Name: Kingswear

Kingswear residents are rightfully proud of their village.

It’s a small, friendly and beautiful place – they call it ‘the sunny side’ due to it catching the sun’s rays for much of the day.

The village is younger than Dartmouth, by more than 100 years – but neither are mentioned in the Domesday Book.

The ‘King’ from the name comes from Kingston, a village on the plateau above the village – NOT the Kingston near Modbury, by the way.

The ‘Wear’ is actually related to a tidal mill that used weirs to control the water in and out and allow more regular power for its corn grinding in Waterhead Creek.  It worked in a very similar way to Dartmouth’s ‘Fosse’ letting water into the Mill Pool – creating not only a place to produce food and employment, but also a beating heart to the community.

It is no coincidence that this technological innovation, which allowed the inhabitants of the area to create their own food also helped the village to become established.

Although there were settlements in the area in Stone Age times, it is only in 1170 – 23 years after a huge fleet left for the Crusades from the Harbour – that the existence of Kingswear is first recorded.

The town was supported not only by its mill but also as a landing point for pilgrims from Europe looking to visit the shrine of Thomas Beckett, murdered in 1170 by followers of his then enemy King Henry II. The murderers took the King’s cry ‘will no one rid me of this turbulent Priest?!” to heart.

Thanks to its association with the pilgrimage the village’s church was dedicated to St Thomas after the Pope canonized him.

The village has developed over the years, with a ferry to Dartmouth running since at least 1365.  However it has never become a hub of trade and population like Dartmouth.

Why is this? No one knows for sure, as it offers a quicker route to the Exeter Road and is, of course, bathed in sunshine for more of the day than its darker, western neighbour.

Even when the railway arrived in 1864, pushed towards Dartmouth by the inimitable Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the village didn’t grow much beyond its current size.

But I think the reason is simply the geography of the land, and the fact that the Dartmouth population made massive changes to their land, allowing more development, and Kingswear’s residents didn’t.

Dartmouth and Kingswear both had tidal mills, Kingswear’s on Waterhead Creek, Dartmouth’s across the Mill Pool, made possible by the ‘Fosse’ or dam across its creek. Because of the larger gap between Dartmouth’s two protruding hills, Hardness and Clifton, this created a larger opportunity for creating flat land suitable for building on.

Dartmouth developed its waterfront, slowly grabbing more and more land from the river.

Kingswear’s geography, with its steeper hills, smaller creek and dense woodland presented more challenges for potential builders – there was more work involved and less land to develop and grab.

So when the Dartmothians filled in the Mill Pool in the early 19th century, Waterhead Creek still remains.

The nearest the village ever came to emulating Dartmouth’s massive land-creation programme was in the 1960s, when the Parish Council got within one vote of buying Waterhead Creek to solve its rubbish disposal problems.  The councilors wanted to slowly fill in the Creek with the village’s rubbish, and when it was filled in, landscape it into a public space.

Sadly, the main reason the councilors DIDN’T commit this massive act of vandalism and pollution was because the cost was too high, as they would have had to manage the whole project themselves.

I think anyone looking at the beautiful creek today will be thankful they doubted their own ability to manage the project, as it is a wonderful place for locals and tourists – arriving on the still-running Steam Railway - alike.

Kingswear now has a unique charm, and a fierce loyalty among its inhabitants. This is partly due to its size and unique location, separated from both Dartmouth and Torbay because of its geography. Beautiful, unique and with a small and committed community, Kingswear’s current residents can be grateful their forebears never decided to build out into the river in the way their counterparts in Dartmouth did.

First Published May/June 2012 By The Dart

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