What to See in Brixham - Top Sights and Attractions

Museum in Brixham, England. Brixham Battery and Battery Gardens are an open space on the sea shore in Brixham, Devon at grid reference SX920569. They are a traditional observation point for Brixham trawler races, both past and present.

The 14-acre (57,000 m2) site of Battery Gardens was first used as a battery in 1586 during the war between England and Spain. The Battery was not permanently armed but was certainly 'active' throughout the American War of Independence during the 1780s and the Napoleonic War against France during the first decade of the 19th century. The Battery was also used by the Coast Guard for gunnery training during the 1870s.

All that can be seen today was built from June – September 1940 immediately following the defeat and evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk after the fall of France.

Of the 116 Emergency Batteries built in 1940 from John O'Groats to Kent, to Lands End, and to South Wales only 7 remain. Of these Brixham battery is the most complete. English Heritage had surveyed the whole site and it is now a scheduled monument.^[5]

Lighthouse in Brixham, England. Berry Head Lighthouse is an active lighthouse, located at the end of Berry Head near Brixham in Devon. It was originally built in 1906, and was then automated and converted to run on acetylene in 1921, and further modernised in 1994; in 2019 it was converted to LED operation. Berry Head is reputedly the shortest lighthouse in Great Britain, but also one of the highest, being only 5 metres tall, but 58 metres above mean sea level. It was also said to be the deepest because the optic was originally turned by a weight falling down a 45 metres deep shaft.

Placed within a revolving third-order dioptric optic, the light had an intensity of 4,200 candela and a range of 19 nautical miles (35 km; 22 mi); it gave a double white flash every 15 seconds. In 2019 the optic and lamp were removed and replaced with a pair of self-contained LED lanterns (one serving as the main light, the other as a standby); the old characteristic was retained. The installation was the first application by Trinity House of its so-called 'simple lighthouse scheme', intended to be extended to all other shore-based mains-powered lighthouses, except those with more complex display requirements (e.g. provision of a sector light).

Semaphore signalling apparatus was on Berry Head before 1875 and acted as the Lloyds' Signal Station for Torbay.^[7]

Lupton is an historic manor in the parish of Brixham, Devon. The surviving manor house known as Lupton House, is a Palladian Country house built by Charles II Hayne, Sheriff of Devon in 1772 and Colonel of the North Devon Militia. It received a Grade II* listing in 1949. The park and gardens are Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

At some time before 1792 it was sold by Charles II Hayne, who had only lived in his new house for about twenty years, to the judge Sir Francis Buller, 1st Baronet (1746–1800), of nearby Churston Court, which he let to a tenant. Judge Buller had another residence, on bleak Dartmoor, known as Prince Hall, where he was a pioneer of moorland reclamation. In about 1840 the house was remodelled in the neo-classical style by his grandson, Sir John Yarde-Buller, 3rd Baronet (1799–1871; created Baron Churston of Churston Ferrers and Lupton in 1858), to the designs of George Wightwick. In 1862 further alterations, since demolished, were made to the designs of Anthony Salvin, who in 1826 had designed Mamhead House for the first baron's father-in-law, Sir Robert William Newman.^[8]