Talk:Paignton

Are there any other Paigntons in the world?

It looks like the answer to this question is no, unless any other Wikipedians know differently. However, Torquay in Devon has a namesake in Australia, see .--Ianmacm 20:57, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

There's also a Torquay in Canada. Oddly, it's hundreds of miles inland. Totnesmartin 20:43, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I doubt there are any other paigntons, as the spelling comes from a mistake by a GWR signwriter, according to legend. there might be one or two paingtons, though. Totnesmartin 20:44, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Torquay in Canada is in Saskatchewan, and seems to be quite small. It does not currently have a Wikipedia article, but there is a map (not very detailed) at .

I have not been able to find anywhere else in the world called Paignton or Paington from a web search, so the mystery continues.--Ianmacm 21:28, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Torquay is indeed a village in Saskatchewan. As well, there's a village by the name of Paynton (note the spelling), but it's nowhere near Torquay. I don't know whether either place name originated from the towns in Devon, but it's probably something I could look up in a trip to the library. -- wacko2 22:04, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

It's possible, Paignton went through loads of different spellings until settling on the current version. If there's a Brixham there too, you've got the set! Totnesmartin 23:38, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

After a trip to the library, I've confirmed that Torquay is named after the city in Devon. However, Paynton is not named after Paignton, but rather after an early settler (Peter Paynter). As well, there are at least two former CP (Canadian Pacific Railway) sidings in Saskatchewan named after places in Devon: Totnes and Bickleigh. If you need more information or references, feel free to ask me either here or on my talk page. I'm afraid I forgot to look up Brixham though. :) -- wacko2 23:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

maybe you could do an article on those towns, you seem to know where to get the information. Totnesmartin 15:05, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

New photos

The photographs have been updated to include some sand as requested.--Ianmacm 13:47, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Hercule Poirot

I removed the claim that Agatha Christie based Hercule Poirot on her experiences in Paignton during World War One, as there is little evidence that this is true. She has been said to have based Poirot on Belgian refugees that she met in Torquay during this period, but there may also have been other influences from crime fiction. See Agatha Christie - A Biography by Janet Morgan (ISBN 0-00-216330-6) for more details.--Ianmacm 17:12, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Images

Rather than edit warring, it would be better to have a WP:CONSENSUS on which images are needed. There are quite a few images of Paignton on Commons, but they do not all need to be in the article, particularly if the subject has a separate main article. Some thoughts:

• Küste bei Paignton.jpg is largely the pub at Goodrington. Preston sands.jpg gives a better view of the beach and the beach huts which are a distinctive feature.
• Paignton Oldway Mansion.jpg is OK but does not show the gardens very well.
• Oldwaymansioninterior.jpg is not needed, Oldway Mansion is a separate article.
• Paignton pier.jpg is currently in Paignton Pier, so Paignton Pier stitch.jpg gives a variation.
• Chilean flamingos at Paignton Zoo.jpg is not really needed, Paignton Zoo is a separate article.
• Sandy beach at Paignton - geograph.org.uk - 364614.jpg is an indifferent image from Geograph.org.
• Paignton railway station and Paignton and Dartmouth Steam Railway are separate articles, so need to repeat the images here.

There needs to be a balance of text and images, not a jumble of images from Commons and other articles.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:23, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Zoo one should go for sure. From a Commons perspective I would consider geograph images great where there are no alternatives but - generally - the quality is not wonderful. The colour is a bit weird in the Goodrington one (the de pub type image.

I would hope that in commons:Category:Paignton there would be some good useful images for consideration but it certainly should be a text based article which is illustrated rather than the other way around (& of course the stitch of the pier must be featured...;)). Just my 0.02 --Herby ^{talk thyme} 18:44, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I made the link to the Commons Category easier to see. This is the best way to approach a range of images rather than overloading the article.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:59, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Paignton pudding

There is a recipe in the Project Gutenberg citation. This is a more suitable place than giving recipes in the article.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 14:15, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Would reinstating the section on the Paignton pudding without reference to all three recipes, or a quote/reference to the gutenberg text be acceptable? I'm puzzled as to why the entire section was deleted, this is an intriguing piece of local history, quirky and the source of the local nickname. Surely it deserves its own section.

I suggest:

"The Paignton pudding was first made in the 13th Century when King John gave Paignton a charter to become a town. It was noted in 1630 to have once been an annual custom that had become less frequent, apparently being made every fifty years to be distributed amongst the poor of the parish. In 1819 a large pudding was recorded and described as "An enormous messy pudding". This pudding took four days to boil in the copper brewing kettle of the Crown and Anchor Inn. The people of Paignton acquired the nickname of pudden eaters when thousands turned up hoping to obtain a piece of a huge pudding that had been baked to celebrate the arrival of the railway in 1859. It was recorded as weighing 1.5 tons measuring 13 feet 6 inches (4.11 m) arond the base and 5 feet (1.5 m) around the top and baked by a local baker, Mr Evans. A Paignton Pudding was baked in 1968 to celebrate the town's charter, and another was baked in 2006 to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel"

Which includes the history but not the, admitedly overkill, recipes.

A whole section with its own subheading is not really necessary. A brief description within the History section backed up by the Gutenberg reference is enough.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 14:03, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

That's a fair suggestion. --Simple Bob ^{a.k.a. The Spaminator} (Talk) 14:08, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

References

John Gosling

Re this edit: I'm not sure if this is notable enough for a mention. John Gosling of The Kinks does not have a blue plaque in the town, and nor is he seen as a key figure in the town's history. This comes across as a random fact about The Kinks, rather than something that a person needs to know about Paignton. If John Gosling (The Kinks musician) is not notable enough for his own BLP article, he isn't really one of Paignton's notable residents. See WP:TOPIC.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 05:00, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• The list of blue plaques in Torbay gives an idea of who local historians consider to be important residents. A 1970s pop musician without a blue plaque or his own Wikipedia article is not a notable figure.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 07:37, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
• The Torquay page has a box of 'Notable people born in Torquay' which includes the founder of Wishbone Ash, several other towns have similar entries. As a line on its own it seems out of place, but as part of a list including others it would be perfectly acceptable to list him, the Wishbone Ash founder doesn't have his own page but it's fairly common for band members to only get redirects to the band page. I agree as written it's just Kinks trivia but if reformatted and expanded it would add to the page. MatGB (talk) 09:24, 18 August 2015 (UTC)MatGB

I'd tend to say Gosling isn't significant enough to warrant a mention here other than as one of a list of names. I don't think it's unfair to say that the Kinks were Ray and Dave Davies (both, famously, from Muswell Hill in north London, not Devon) plus whoever happened to be playing with them at the time, and Gosling isn't a particularly significant figure in their history (the "Members" section of the official Kinks website doesn't even mention him). He was only in the band for a relatively short period (1970–78), by which time the bands' glory days were behind them; assuming The Kinks discography#1970s is correct he didn't play on any song to enter the top 10 anywhere in the world (and only one to enter the top 30) other than "Apeman" and "Lola" just after he joined. Googling "John Gosling" Paignton brings up almost nothing but a few Wikipedia mirrors, which makes me strongly assume that neither the band nor the town have ever made anything of the connection. ‑ iridescent 18:19, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

As nobody's said anything to the contrary, I'm going to remove Gosling again. Per my comments above, although the Kinks are certainly a highly significant band I don't consider Gosling a particularly significant member (and he certainly doesn't belong under "places of interest"!). I can see a case for a "list of notable people from Paignton" section, but not for including Gosling on his own, as he's certainly not the most noteworthy person from Paignton. (Sue Barker, T P Cameron Wilson, Samuel Chapin, Ray Reardon, Chris Read... I could even make a case that Hannah Harper is better known.) ‑ iridescent 10:17, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

European Parliament election, 2014

I've got stuck while trying to find the results for Torbay for the European Parliament election, 2014. The best source was here but is for the whole of the south west. The 2009 results are a dead link. Help requested here.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 15:37, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070714083324/http://www.theheritagetrail.co.uk/piers/paignton%20pier.htm to http://www.theheritagetrail.co.uk/piers/paignton%20pier.htm
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Schools

Re this edit: As a general rule, a Wikipedia article about a town does not need to list all of the schools, churches, sports clubs etc. This leads to problems with WP:NOTDIRECTORY. Unless there is coverage in secondary sources, notability is not established.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 07:18, 20 March 2018 (UTC) Paignton does have the largest primary school in Devon, Oldway, with 700 pupils and further education establishment just short of university status. You has better cast your deletist eyes to Torquay and Brixham.REVUpminster (talk) 08:58, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm aware of the WP:OTHERCONTENT. The trouble is that lists without context are not very encyclopedic. If you look at typical print encyclopedia articles about towns, they don't list this type of information.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:10, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Hookhills Burial

I have added this but difficult to cite as the wording, slightly changed, comes from a photo I took of the poster explaining the skeleton in the Torquay Museum when I saw it April 2019. REVUpminster (talk) 10:55, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

It's a good find. The burial is covered in depth in Vol 66 (2008) of the Devon Archaeological Society Proceedings, see https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/library/browse/issue.xhtml?recordId=1082284&recordType=Journal (I have a copy if you're interested). The only question here is how much detail is appropriate in this article.  —SMALLJIM  21:02, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I did find that reference. I did not use all the detail from the poster, such as the housing developer may have destroyed the rest of the site or hairstyles and other items not really about the area of Paignton. But it is important in that it proved Roman influence was in the area. REVUpminster (talk) 22:13, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

That's fine - thanks. I've added the full reference to the journal and retained the link to the online abstract.  —SMALLJIM  23:27, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Paignton population

The figures are wrong. For some reason the government figures are using Cockington, Edginswell as if they were in Paignton arriving at a figure of 67520 and Torquay 52035 which reverses the sizes of the two towns. REVUpminster (talk) 16:08, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

The map shown here is weird because it includes Cockington, Shiphay and Edginswell which are definitely not in Paignton. Not sure how to approach this as the census figures are supposed to be a reliable source. It is overestimating to give Paignton a population of nearly 70,000, this can't be right.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:39, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Continuing this these figures are the most accurate. https://www.southdevonandtorbay.info/media/pdehwalj/population-torbay-2025.pdf REVUpminster (talk) 05:55, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

According to the government census figures, the population of Paignton grew from around 50,000 to around 68,000 between 2011 and 2021. This doesn't make sense, and it leads to the question of whether the boundaries were modified in some way. The figure of 67,520 must include some areas that are not in Paignton, because there is no way that Paignton has a larger population than Torquay, as suggested at List of settlements in Devon by population. It seems to be the inclusion of Cockington, Shiphay and Edginswell that is doing this. However, we are stuck with the figure of 67,520 because it is what the 2021 census says.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 10:14, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

And it's not a reliable source because it would skew all health, house building, planning matters that the NHS and council work from.

The council did try to pull a fast one recently by including the Inglewood Development in Brixham's land supply which the planning inspector pointed out the development was in Paignton. REVUpminster (talk) 12:20, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

Merge proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

To selectively merge from List of people from Paignton to Paignton on the grounds that the list does not meet WP:NLIST; a selective merge is necessary because the association has been contested (unopposed) for many of the people on the list. Klbrain (talk) 21:17, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

---

I propose merging List of people from Paignton into Paignton. List of people from Paignton is currently unsourced and it is not clear that it meets WP:NLIST. Mariamnei (talk) 14:24, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose: As I said at User_talk:Ianmacm#Paignton, this is largely a list of people born in Paignton but do not have strong links to the town, creating problems with WP:TRIVIA. It is also largely unsourced, for example Lauren Cuthbertson doesn't even say that she was born in Paignton, let alone source it. This type of list should be properly sourced before adding it. ArbieP seems to enjoy adding this type of random list to articles, but without bothering to provide sources that meet WP:V. I would remove it from this article if it was simply a heap of unsourced material.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 14:43, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

  Support. I've now added (14) refs for the list. I hope you can both now accept the list (back) in the main article. ArbieP (talk) 16:34, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

I haven't had time to go through all of this yet, but the Sara Craven source does not mention Paignton at all. Likewise, the Lauren Cuthbertson source does not mention Paignton by name. Also, there are still concerns about WP:NLIST notability, because the sourcing (such as it is), does not discuss why the people are notably linked to Paignton. As NLIST says, "One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources.", eg List of Nobel laureates easily satisfies this guideline. It is ok to have this type of material in a Category if it is reliably sourced, but Wikipedia articles are written in prose and do not include randomly compiled lists just for the sake of it.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 16:41, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Let's have a look at the sourcing for this list:

• Patrick Brind: unsourced at his article
• John Frederick Perkins: unsourced at his article
• Frank Grenier: unsourced at his article
• Sara Craven: unsourced at her article
• John Gosling (The Kinks musician): this is sourced at his article
• Adrian Sanders: unsourced at his article
• Lauren Cuthbertson: unsourced at her article
• George Stabb: unsourced at his article
• Roy Kerslake: unsourced at his article
• Sue Barker: the sourcing at her article describes her as "a girl from Torquay" although she did go to school in Paignton
• Mark Loram: unsourced at his article
• Chris Read: unsourced at his article
• Steve Tully: unsourced at his article
• Matthew Hockley: unsourced at his article, although Soccerbase says that he was born in Paignton.
• Martin Horsell: unsourced at his article
• Connor Riley-Lowe: unsourced at his article, Soccerbase says that he was born in England

It is lazy to compile this type of list without making any effort to source it first. Just because another Wikipedia article says "X was born in Paignton" without sourcing it does not make it true.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 16:15, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

  Y Merge completed Klbrain (talk) 21:17, 18 July 2026 (UTC)