England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Tormoham St Saviour

The Parish

The parish of Tormoham lies on the eastern coast of southern Devon roughly 22 miles south of the county town of Exeter. One will not see Tormoham on modern Ordnance Survey maps it is subsumed within the coastal resort of Torquay. Tormoham was a coastal parish set around its parish church and the Abbey at Torre whilst it held a stretch of the coastline its village was inland around the area of its parish church. At the time of this transcript Tormoham was a relatively small village with a parish economy largely a mixture of pastoral farming and fishing, mackerel being a local speciality. Torre Abbey had been founded in 1196 but was largely demolished and sold off during and subsequent to the dissolution of Henry VIII, nevertheless its estate had a major say in the local economy. The development of the large coastal resort of Torquay only began in the last decade of the 17th century. In 1794 the land along the coastline was divided between two prominent local families, the Cary family of Torre Abbey and the Palk family of Torre Manor with the Cary family acting first to act creating the first houses on the coast in what was called New Quay. Following the redevelopment of the harbour much coastal development was completed by the Palk family. All of this development was, of course, developed to support the craze for sea-bathing, a craze enhanced by the coming of the Great Western Railway. The final nail in Tormoham's existence came in 1876 when the Local Board of Heath obtained government approval to change the area's name from Tormoham to Torquay. Today Torquay is part of an extremely large coastal resort, Torbay, with urban properties stretching from Maidencombe in the north to Broadsands in the south, a distance of over 6 miles from north to south and also extending inland for almost 2 miles. Such is the development that the original imprint of Tormoham village is hard to discern. As a coastal parish numerous small streams drained into the adjacent English Channel. Tormoham is sited at around 30 metres by the church but of course rose from sea level to around 150 metres within the parish, that height is average for the local high spots in an area of incised topography with many steep slopes. Tormoham parish was fairly typically sized for its area, covering just under 1,600 acres it had a population that exploded from a few hundred to well over 5,000 but most of that growth was beyond the transcript period, marriages volumes pre-development are closer to that expected in a population of 1/10th of that; today's population is multiple thousands higher still making Torquay one of Devon's largest towns. In Domesday times this was a quiet country corner with Tormoham in the hands of William the Usher and offering just 6 ploughs together with the usual meadows, pasture & woodlands.

The Church

St Saviour's church was deemed surplus to Anglican requirements but has remained in worship as it is now the Greek Orthodox church of St Andrew. The building can be found in the "v" between Tor Church Road and St Efride's Road. Despite there being a church here from early times the earliest fabric shown by St Saviour is its Perpendicular styled arcades and the western tower of similar vintage. All of this is as a result of a heavy program of Victorian restorations. Work began, however, in the Georgian period when the western gallery was rebuilt in 1830. The Victorians followed this with a very thorough general restoration in 1849. By the mid 1870s further work was commissioned and the chancel extended and rebuilt. Most of the church's internal fixtures and fittings were also replaced in Victorian times giving the church an atmosphere that is decidedly  modern rather than medieval. The church was declared redundant by the church authorities in the 1960s but such a facility stayed that way for only a short while before becoming the home of Greek Orthodoxy in the town. Entry is from St Elfride's Road but local parking is best sought in Tor Church Road over which the church looms at above head height. Whilst the churchyard is relatively open there are scattered trees which it is difficult to avoid, the sloping site creates its own difficulties but there adequate spots to encompass the church by the photographer.