Bishop's Tawton is a village and civil parish in the North Devon district of Devon, England. It is in the valley of the River Taw, about three miles south of Barnstaple. According to the 2001 census the parish had a population of 1,176.
The spire of St John the Baptist church in the village is 14th century. Within the church, the baptismal font is Norman and there survive several mural monuments to the Chichester family of Hall.
Several sources dating from the 16th and 17th centuries [1] record that the see of the first bishop for Devon (a diocese created by dividing the Diocese of Sherborne in the early 10th century) was at Tawton [2] (later named Bishop's Tawton) in 905, though certainly by 909 the see was at Crediton. (In 1050 the see moved to Exeter.) Any link between a possible 10th-century former bishop's church/cathedral and the extant Church of St John the Baptist is conjectural. The case for a brief bishopric at Tawton is far from proved, but there are remains of a modest bishop's "palace" at Court Farm, next to the parish church. This residence was used for centuries by the diocesan bishops, until Tudor times, and the parish was a bishop's peculiar. [3]
There is a pillar on Codden Hill to Caroline Thorpe, the wife of the local MP Jeremy Thorpe; she died, aged 32, on 29 June 1970 in a car accident. The monument, designed by Clough Williams-Ellis, was dedicated on 4 December 1971 by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Crediton. [4]
Notable residents included Clara Codd, the suffragette and theosophist, who was born in Pill, Bishop's Tawton in October 1877. [5]
Crediton is a town and civil parish in the Mid Devon district of Devon in England. It stands on the A377 Exeter to Barnstaple road at the junction with the A3072 road to Tiverton, about 7 miles (11 km) north west of Exeter and around 14 miles (23 km) from the M5 motorway. It has a population of 8,304. However, the combined population of the parishes that make up the Crediton area is estimated to be 21,990.
Accott is an historic estate, now a small settlement, in the parish of Bishop's Tawton in the county of Devon, England
Arlington was a manor, and is a village and civil parish in the North Devon district of Devon in England. The parish includes the villages of Arlington and Arlington Beccott. The population of the parish is 98.
Copplestone is a village, former manor and civil parish in Mid Devon in the English county of Devon. It is not an ecclesiastical parish as it has no church of its own, which reflects its status as a relatively recent settlement which grew up around the ancient "Copleston Cross" that stands at the junction of the three ancient ecclesiastical parishes of Colebrooke, Crediton and Down St Mary.
Urith was a Christian woman from the Westcountry of Great Britain who was alleged to have been martyred in the 8th century, and subsequently revered as a saint. The name is still common in the English county of Devon. Her feast day is 8 July and her shrine is located in the North Devon village of Chittlehampton. Her name is also known in Latin as Hieritha and occasionally corrupted to Erth.
Sandford is a village and civil parish in the Mid Devon district, within Devon, England. Sandford is part of the electoral ward named Sandford and Creedy. The ward population at the 2011 Census was 3,429.
Crediton Parish Church, formally the Collegiate Church of the Holy Cross and the Mother of Him who Hung Thereon, is a prominent building and worshipping community in the Devon town of Crediton. The church is built on the site of what was the "cathedral" of the Bishop of Crediton in the former diocese until 1050 when the see was transferred to Exeter. A college of canons remained at Crediton, administering the buildings and life of the "collegiate" church. The nave and chancel of the current building date from the 15th century. At the English Reformation the church was surrendered to Henry VIII in 1545, and the college dispersed. The church buildings were bought by the Crediton Town Corporation who still administer the fabric today. Now a parish church, the life of the church is administered by the parochial church council (PCC), although many still refer to the church as the Collegiate Church of the Holy Cross.
The Bishop of Cornwall was the bishop of a diocese which existed between about 930 and 1050. Nothing is known about bishops in the post-Roman British Kingdom of Cornwall, but by the mid-ninth century Wessex was gaining control over the area, and between 833 and 870 a bishop at Dinuurrin, probably Bodmin, acknowledged the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury. There may have been another bishop at St Germans. By the end of the century Cornwall was part of the diocese of Sherborne, and Asser may have been appointed the suffragan bishop of Devon and Cornwall around 890 before he became bishop of the whole diocese. When he died in 909, Sherborne was divided into three dioceses, of which Devon and Cornwall were one. In Æthelstan's reign (924-939) there was a further division with the establishment of a separate Cornish diocese based at St Germans. Later bishops of Cornwall were sometimes referred to as the bishops of St Germans. In 1050, the bishoprics of Crediton and of Cornwall were merged and the Episcopal see was transferred to Exeter.
Sir John III Chichester of Hall was Member of Parliament for Lostwithiel in Cornwall in 1624.
The historic manor of Raleigh, near Barnstaple and in the parish of Pilton, North Devon, was the first recorded home in the 14th century of the influential Chichester family of Devon. It was recorded in the Doomsday Book of 1086 together with three other manors that lie within the later-created parish of Pilton. Pilton as a borough had existed long before the Norman Conquest and was one of the most important defensive towns in Devon under the Anglo-Saxons. The manor lies above the River Yeo on the southern slope of the hill on top of which exists the ruins of the Anglo-Saxon hillfort of Roborough Castle. The historic manor of Raleigh is now the site of the North Devon District Hospital.
Hall is a large estate within the parish and former manor of Bishop's Tawton, Devon. It was for several centuries the seat of a younger branch of the prominent and ancient North Devon family of Chichester of Raleigh, near Barnstaple. The mansion house is situated about 2 miles south-east of the village of Bishop's Tawton and 4 miles south-east of Barnstaple, and sits on a south facing slope of the valley of the River Taw, overlooking the river towards the village of Atherington. The house and about 2,500 acres of surrounding land continues today to be owned and occupied by descendants, via a female line, of the Chichester family. The present Grade II* listed neo-Jacobean house was built by Robert Chichester between 1844 and 1847 and replaced an earlier building. Near the house to the south at the crossroads of Herner the Chichester family erected in the 1880s a private chapel of ease which contains mediaeval woodwork saved from the demolished Old Guildhall in Barnstaple.
The estate of Acland in the parish of Landkey, near Barnstaple in North Devon, England, was from 1155 the earliest known seat of the influential and wealthy family of Acland, to which it gave the surname de Acland. It is situated about 3/4 mile north-east of the village of Landkey, from which it is now cut off by the busy A361 North Devon Link Road.
Peamore is a historic country estate in the parish of Exminster, Devon, which is near the city of Exeter. In 1810 Peamore House was described as "one of the most pleasant seats in the neighbourhood of Exeter". The house was remodelled in the early 19th century and is now a grade II listed building.
Pill is an historic estate in the parish of Bishop's Tawton, near Barnstaple, in North Devon, England. The surviving 18th-century mansion house known as Pill House is a grade II* listed building situated close to the east bank of the River Taw about 1 mile south of the historic centre of Barnstaple and 1 mile north of Bishop's Tawton Church. It was long a seat of a junior branch of the Chichester family of Hall, Bishop's Tawton. At some time before 1951 it was converted into apartments and is at present in multiple occupation.
Henry Northleigh (1643–1694) of Peamore in the parish of Exminster in Devon, was thrice MP for Okehampton in Devon.
Clara Margaret Codd was a British writer, suffragette, socialist feminist, and theosophist. She went to jail for the suffragettes and then devoted her life to the Theosophical Society.
The Church of St John the Baptist is the Anglican parish church for the village of Bishop's Tawton in Devon. The church has been a Grade I listed building since 1965 and comes under the Diocese of Exeter.
The lord of the manor of Swimbridge in Devon, England, until the 20th century was the Duke of Bedford, of Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire and of Endsleigh Cottage in Devon, whose ancestor John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford (c.1485–1555) of Chenies in Buckinghamshire and of Bedford House in Exeter, Devon, was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Devon by King Henry VIII and obtained large grants of land in that county following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Thus there is no manor house in Swimbridge as the lord was non-resident. The location of the court house where manorial business was transacted may have been Ernesborough.
Newport is an area of Barnstaple, in the North Devon district, in the county of Devon, England, situated one mile south-east of the historic centre of Barnstaple, between that town and Bishops Tawton, on the east side of the River Taw. It is now part of the suburbs of Barnstaple. Few ancient buildings survive, the "Old Dairy" being a notable exception.
Media related to Bishop's Tawton at Wikimedia Commons
Coordinates: 51°03′08″N4°02′48″W / 51.05222°N 4.04667°W