Aims
- to record modern history of the area from living sources
- to research and record general and specific items of the area’s past
- to identify and attempt to safeguard heritage items of particular concern within the area
- to provide regular talks and visits related to local and more general devon history
Membership?
There is no membership fee so that means that anyone is welcome to attend our talks held in the Galmpton Village Institute hall in the centre of Galmpton.
The fee to attend these is usually just £3 per person, and this is to cover the cost of the speakers and hall hire. Our group volunteers kindly provide tea and coffee at the start of the talks where possible, and for this we ask for a small donation to cover the cost.
E-Mail List
If you want to be kept up to date with talks, events and other history group news, please subscribe to our email newsletter which is only used by us for history group events and new.
More about the Group
The area identified by our history group is the historic Parish of Churston Ferrers, situated to the North West of Brixham, within the administrative area of Torbay. It includes the villages of Churston Ferrers and Galmpton and continues to retain a rural identity. Its position and appeal remain unique, lying between the waters of Torbay to the East and the Dart estuary to the West.
To this day the rural setting remains dominant even though its two villages of Saxon origin have both changed considerably in character and status. There has become a reversal of roles in so much as Galmpton, having originally been the junior partner, has expanded considerably since World War II.
Churston Ferrers, having been the seat of the Lord of the Manor and the site of the mother church, has not expanded in anything like the same way. In addition, the areas known as Broadsands and Elbury, having been totally rural up until World War II, have now become largely residential in their own right.
Both historic centres of population have developed on the lowland topography, only a mere mile apart.
Churston Ferrers is situated on a limestone plateau, its church less than ½ mile from the sea.
Galmpton is more secretively tucked away within an indentation of the Dart catchment at the base of the rising upland to the south. The original settlement would have been well sheltered by the lie of the land from most winds. Out of sight but not out of mind, the Dart has, and continues to play, an integral part in the life of the village.