[2] 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.

[3] Kerswell Down, just to the west of the village, is the site of a late Bronze Age/early Iron Age field system,[4] and a hoard of over 2,000 (small copper or brass)[5] Roman coins was found here, near the church, some time between 1838 and 1840.

[6] The exact details of how and where the coins were found is not known, and their present whereabouts is unknown too,[3] but in 1878 they were said to bear inscriptions of Gallienus, Tacitus, Probus and others.

[8] 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.

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.

[27] Since 2000 some clearance and conservation work has been undertaken at the site with the assistance of the South West England Environmental Trust,[28] and it is now a scheduled monument.

In his later life he was very generous to the parish, helping to provide new pews, an organ and an altar-piece for the church and increasing its glebe-lands, as well as building and supporting a school for 60 children.

[30] In the 1830s lord of the manor Henry Langford Brown built Barton Hall on a site about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) south east of the church, now on the borders of Torquay.

The hall and surrounding lands then passed through several owners, and as of 2010 are being run by PGL Travel Ltd. as a centre for schools and youth activity courses, English as a Foreign Language groups and Family Adventure breaks.

[31] The arrival of the Newton Abbot to Kingswear railway line in the late 1840s had a dramatic effect as it was driven through the centre of the village.

[34] The coming of the railway also caused the replacement of much of the local straw thatch that had traditionally been used for roofing with Welsh slate that could be transported at little cost.

[39] In the 19th century the village was well known for the production of cider and much of the land to the east of the main road now occupied by housing estates was once covered by apple orchards.

To the west is the woodland of Kerswell Downs, the eastern half of which (some 30 acres (120,000 m2) of woodland and grassland) was gifted to the parish by Thomas Hercules Langford Brown, descendant of Henry Langford Brown who built Barton Hall, for the Millennium year 2000;[4] beyond this is the large limestone quarry at Stoneycombe, and north of that lies the village of Abbotskerswell.

Consequently, it has designated a conservation area of 3.5 hectares around the ruins of the manor house on the west side of the valley within which further development must be severely restricted.

[51] After being postponed, cancelled and reinstated in the following years,[52] planning permission for a bypass was granted in August 2005 with the main construction work due to start in Summer 2010 for completion in 2013.

[53] However, in June 2010 the Government's Transport Minister, Norman Baker said that in light of a tough spending review funding could not be guaranteed,[54] and in October 2010 it was confirmed that the bypass was not one of the 24 schemes that had been approved.

[55] However, in November 2011 the government awarded £74.6 million towards the cost of the bypass, and the county council stated that it hoped that construction could start in October 2012 with completion in December 2015.