The town, which is predominantly hilly, is built around a natural harbour, which in addition to leisure craft, provides anchorage for what is now one of England's (but not the UK's) largest remaining commercial fishing fleets.

The oldest and largest of Brixham's two Anglican churches is St. Mary's, approximately one mile (1.6 km) inland from the sea in the area of the town once known as Cowtown.

The present church, dating from approximately 1360, is the third to occupy the site (an ancient Celtic burial place), the first and second having been a Saxon building of wooden construction and a Norman one of stone respectively.

[7] Built in around 1736, Brixham boasts what is believed to be the world's only coffin-shaped house, the story going that its unusual design results from an argument between a father and his prospective son-in-law.

Francis Lyte, who is well known for the writing, in the last weeks of his life, of the famous hymn Abide With Me at his home, Berry Head House, (now Brixham's largest hotel) on the north-eastern edge of the town.

On the night of 10/11 January 1866, Brixham was subjected to a storm of unusual severity, which, after the wind had veered to the east around midnight, a direction from which Torbay is not well sheltered, sank at least eleven local trawlers and a visiting French boat.

It is not known how many of their crew members and passengers were killed; the committee set up to help the victims of the disaster estimated that at least 70 had died, while other sources, in particular contemporary newspaper accounts, made claims of more than 150 fatalities.

[10] On the morning of 3 September 1973, a Jodel D. 117 G-AVEI light aircraft crashed due to engine failure on a residential bungalow in Higher Ranscombe Road, Brixham, killing its twenty-five year old pilot and his two small children.

When this developed into a recognisable industry no one any longer knows, but by 1406 it had grown sufficiently large to warrant regulation by the Bailiff of the Water of the Dart, an officer of the Duchy of Cornwall, a legacy of this being that up until 1902 Brixham fishing boats were registered at Dartmouth rather than their actual home port.

During the 1820s over 120 tons on average of turbot and sole was being landed per week by a Brixham fleet of about ninety trawlers exploiting fish stocks as far west as the Irish and Welsh coasts and eastwards along the Channel as far as Hastings and Dover.

In time these ports would grow significantly larger than Brixham, but in the middle of the nineteenth century the town still boasted the largest fishing fleet in England, with more than 250 boats keeping well over 1,000 fishermen in employment.

Catches consisted of flounder, gurnard, herring, mullet, plaice, sole, turbot and whiting, the best quality fish being sent to Exeter, Bath, Bristol and London.

Other maritime trades such as sail, rope and net-making were needed as well and became a conspicuous feature of the Brixham townscape, forming an important part of the local economy in their own right.

This decline was further compounded by the outbreak of World War One in 1914 and the resultant loss of fishing boats to U-boat attack and trawler crews being called upon for military service.

The arrival during World War Two of refugee fishermen from Belgium helped to revitalise the fishing industry and brought with it a much needed knowledge of diesel engines.

According to local legend, their wives brought everything they could carry, including furniture and bedding, to make a big bonfire on the quayside to guide their men home.

Fifty vessels were wrecked and more than one hundred people died in the storm; when dawn broke, the wreckage stretched for nearly three miles (5 km) up the coast.

On another occasion when there was a cholera epidemic, some Brixham smugglers drove their cargo up from the beach in a hearse, accompanied by a bevy of supposed mourners following the cortege drawn by horses with muffled hooves.

To the east of Brixham, and sheltering its harbour, lies the coastal headland of Berry Head with a lighthouse, Iron Age fort and national nature reserve.

The forts were maintained as important defensive positions during the Napoleonic Wars though never fired their cannons in anger, and slowly fell into military disuse during the course of the rest of the nineteenth century, now forming part of the Berry Head National Nature Reserve.

In July 1815, the British Royal Navy warship, HMS Bellerophon, spent a week anchored off of Brixham, the former French emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, being held on board as a prisoner following his capture after the Battle of Waterloo.

2,500 men of the US 4th Infantry Division and 32 amphibious DD tanks embarked on 4 June 1944 for Utah Beach as part of the D-Day landings against German-occupied France.

The remains of the quarry are for the most part still accessible to the public and the former loading jetty is a popular venue for sea angling with locals and holidaymakers alike.

Fishstock Brixham is a one-day annual seafood and live music festival held in aid of the Fishermen's Mission (RNMDSF).

[19] Six years later, in 1974, local government was reformed again, with Torbay becoming a non-metropolitan district and Devon County Council providing county-level services to the area again.

[30] Footballer Dan Gosling, of Watford F.C., was born and raised in Brixham, and is the fourth-youngest player to have ever played for Plymouth Argyle aged 16 years and 310 days.

The Association of Train Operating Companies included Brixham as one of fourteen towns that, based on 2009 data, would benefit from a new railway service, but restoration is highly unlikely.

Stagecoach service 18 take about 15 minutes for the journey from Brixham (Bank Street) to Kingswear, where a river crossing to Dartmouth can be made by ferry.

Local town services operated by both Stagecoach and Country Bus, serve Furzeham, Wall Park, Sharkham, South Bay, Higher Brixham, Summercombe and Hillhead.

Frequent ferry services for foot passengers operate from Brixham Harbour to Torquay between the months of April and September, the fastest taking 35 minutes.