Bishop's Tawton

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Bishop's Tawton (centre), viewed from Codden Hill Bishops Tawton - on Codden Hill - geograph.org.uk - 555015.jpg
Bishop's Tawton (centre), viewed from Codden Hill
The monument on Codden Hill to Caroline Thorpe, the wife of the local MP Jeremy Thorpe; she died in a car crash in 1970 A monument on Codden Beacon - geograph.org.uk - 1749050.jpg
The monument on Codden Hill to Caroline Thorpe, the wife of the local MP Jeremy Thorpe; she died in a car crash in 1970

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.

Contents

Description

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]

Historic estates

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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.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pill, Bishop's Tawton</span> Historic estate in north Devon, England

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Church of St John the Baptist, Bishop's Tawton</span> Church in Devon, England

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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.

References

  1. Chanter, J.R. Tawton: The First Saxon Bishopric of Devonshire, Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art, Vol. VII (1875), pp. 179-196.
  2. Cutts, Rev E L (1887)A Dictionary of the Church of England. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge., p. 278
  3. Orme, N. The Church in Devon: 400-1560 (Exeter, 2013), caption to Fig. 9.
  4. Thorpe, Jeremy (2014). In My Own Time. Biteback Publishing.
  5. "Codd, Clara Margaret (1876–1971), suffragette and theosophist | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/63842

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Coordinates: 51°03′08″N4°02′48″W / 51.05222°N 4.04667°W / 51.05222; -4.04667