Kingskerswell (formerly Kings Carswell, or Kings Kerswell) is a village and civil parish within Teignbridge local government district in the south of Devon, England. The village grew up where an ancient track took the narrowest point across a marshy valley and it is of ancient foundation, being mentioned in the Domesday Book. It has a church dating back to the 14th century and the ruins of a manor house of similar date. The coming of the railway in the 1840s had a large effect on the village, starting its conversion into a commuter town. The village is a major part of the electoral ward called Kerswell-with-Combe. This ward had a population of 5,679 at the 2011 census.
It was situated on a busy main road, part of the A380, between Torquay and Newton Abbot until the opening of the South Devon Highway in December 2015. There had been proposals to reroute this road to relieve the traffic bottleneck since 1951.
History
Beginnings
There are several prehistoric sites on the high ground surrounding Kingskerswell, such as the Iron Age sites of Milber Down, Berry's Wood and Dainton. Kerswell Down, just to the west of the village, is the site of a late Bronze Age/early Iron Age field system, and a hoard of over 2,000 (small copper or brass) Roman coins was found here, near the church, some time between 1838 and 1840. The exact details of how and where the coins were found is not known, and their present whereabouts is unknown too, but in 1878 they were said to bear inscriptions of Gallienus, Tacitus, Probus and others. In 1992 during survey work for a bypass, evidence of a Roman settlement was found at Aller Cross, just north of the village. It may have an early military origin, and if it does it "would be of regional importance".
The Aller Brook and its tributaries lie in a shallow, wide and marshy valley that drains roughly north-westerly from the outskirts of Torquay to the estuary of the River Teign at Newton Abbot. There is one point in this valley where two spurs of land form a narrow crossing point, and it was here that an ancient track from St Marychurch and Coffinswell crossed the valley on its way west towards Ipplepen and Totnes. A bridge, known as Dacca Bridge or Daccabridge, was constructed here and this is where the village developed, on the western bank.
The first written record of Kingskerswell is in the Domesday Book where it is called Carsewelle. Before the Norman Conquest it was held by Edward the Confessor as part of the royal demesne; afterwards it continued in royal ownership under William the Conqueror and his descendants (in contrast to the nearby village of Abbotskerswell). The first part of the village's name represents this royal ownership. The Saxon word carse probably means watercress, a plant that still grows freely in the local streams; and the last part of the name most likely refers to the wells and springs in the vicinity, though an alternative theory proposes that it derives from the Latin villa, indicating a Roman origin.
After being granted to several lords, but always escheating to the king due to the lack of any heirs, the manor was given to Nicholas de Moels in 1230. In 1268 his son, Roger de Molis, was granted the right to hold a weekly market on Tuesdays and an annual fair on 1 September. The manor remained in the de Molis family until some time between 1349 and 1362 when it passed to the Courtenays for a short time until 1369 when it again escheated to the king because the next heir, John Dinham (1359–1428), was aged only eleven.
John Dinham (or "Dynham") eventually gained his inheritance in 1381. He died in 1428 but the manor remained in his family until 1501. On the death of John Dynham, 1st Baron Dynham in that year, his lands were divided between his four sisters and the portion that included Kingskerswell passed to his eldest sister, Margery, and eventually to Henry Compton, 1st Baron Compton. By 1710 the manor was owned by Sir Henry Langford who passed it to Thomas Brown; in 1972 the lord of the manor was T.H. Langford Brown of Littlehempston.
The church and manor house
A church is mentioned in the Domesday entry for Kingskerswell: "Also to the church of this manor belongs half a virgate of land", though this does not necessarily imply the existence of a building; it may just represent a group of Christians under some form of rectorship or similar administration. By 1159 there was a chaplain named William here, and in 1301 the chapel was visited by the Dean and Chapter of Exeter. They made several notes on the condition of the chapel, including the fact that it had three bells, but it was generally in poor repair—for instance the chancel roof was in a bad condition and its windows had no glass.