Coffinswell

Last updated June 01, 2023

Coffinswell is a small village in South Devon, England, just off the A380, the busy Newton Abbot to Torquay road. It lies within Teignbridge District Council.

Coffinswell has a church dedicated to Saint Bartholomew with a Norman font. Near the church is Court Barton, a manor house of partly 16th century date; the southern part of which was used as a court house by Torre Abbey.^[1] The village lies in a rural valley surrounded by farmland, and has many traditional Devon cob and thatch cottages. Lanes and tracks lead to the neighbouring hamlet of Daccombe and over the ridge towards Haccombe and the River Teign approximately 3 miles north over undulating land.

Surrounding places

Coffinswell is surrounded by several small villages and hamlets. Clockwise from the north-west these are:

Milber. This suburb of Newton Abbot is mainly residential. On the hill above it is the Iron Age hill fort of Milber Down.
Netherton. A small hamlet between Milber and Haccombe. A footpath leads to Coombe Cellars on the River Teign.
Haccombe is a small hamlet below the St Marychurch road. Its small chapel is dedicated to Saint Blaise. Haccombe House is a "nondescript Georgian structure" (Pevsner): built ca. 1800: the chapel is in the grounds; the estate being the historic home of Sir Thomas Carew, 1st Baronet (1595–1640). The benefice is occupied by an incumbent with the rare title of Archpriest. The archpresbytery was established in 1341 with six clergy: only the archpriest survived at the Reformation.^[2] The parish is combined with that of Stoke-in-Teignhead with Combe-in-Teignhead.
Plant World. A garden centre and a large garden which is designed as a map of the world, with rare plants grown relevant to their location on the map. It is significant for the cultivation of giant Echiums.
Rocombe. A small hamlet at the bottom of the valley on the lane towards Stokeinteignhead.
Maidencombe, about 2.5 miles (4.0 km) distant, is the closest beach to Coffinswell. It is also a small village (recognised by Torbay Council) on the coast of Lyme Bay.
Daccombe. A small hamlet of thatched cottages and a campsite. It is at the head of the valley of the Aller Brook. The name is first attested in 1178 as Daccumba. The name was once thought to come from an Old English personal name Dæcca + cumb ("valley"), in which case it once meant "Dæcca's valley".^[3] But Eilert Ekwall noted that this provided a poor explanation for the attested spellings, and argued that the first element came from an Old English common noun *dāc ("jackdaw") and that the name thus meant "jackdaw valley" (though he thought that the better attested Old English word dā "doe" could provide an alternative explanation).^[4]
Barton. A suburb of Torquay. Barton Hall, a former manor house, is here. In recent years it has been a holiday camp and adventure centre with a dry ski slope.
Kingskerswell is a large village separated from Coffinswell by a hill. Mainly residential, it is on the old Torquay to Newton Abbot road.

Landscape

Most of the landscape around Coffinswell is hilly farmland. Traditional Devon hedgerows form field boundaries, and have existed at least since Norman times. Most of the flora is native, with the exception of cultivated or non-native flora in private gardens and horticultural sites, e.g. rhododendrons around Haccombe and gorse and pines near Milber.^{[ citation needed ]}

Water courses, rivers and hydrology

Coffinswell sits in the Daccombe or Aller Brook drainage basin. The Aller Brook flows west toward Aller, Newton Abbot, before entering the River Teign which empties into Lyme Bay at Teignmouth. Water collection on the east side of the Daccombe drainage basin or the Watcombe drainage basin flows through Barton and Watcombe into Babbacombe bay at Watcombe beach. Likewise water collection on the north side of the drainage basin collects in Haccombe and flows toward the River Teign.^{[ citation needed ]}

Notable residents

The botanist and illustrator Rev. W. Keble Martin was Rector here in the 1920s, and studied the local flora.^[5] During his time Michael Constantine de Courcy, 33rd Baron Kingsale (1855–1931) lived in Coffinswell.^[6]

Sarah Buck, the first woman President of the Institution of Structural Engineers, (2008) lives in the village.

Related Research Articles

The River Teign is a river in the county of Devon, England. It is 31 mi (50 km) long and rises on Dartmoor, becomes an estuary just below Newton Abbot and reaches the English Channel at Teignmouth.

Teignbridge is a local government district in Devon, England. Its council is based in Newton Abbot.

Newton Abbot is a market town and civil parish on the River Teign in the Teignbridge District of Devon, England. Its 2011 population of 24,029 was estimated to reach 26,655 in 2019. It grew rapidly in the Victorian era as the home of the South Devon Railway locomotive works. This later became a major steam engine shed, retained to service British Railways diesel locomotives until 1981. It now houses the Brunel industrial estate. The town has a race course nearby, the most westerly in England, and a country park, Decoy. It is twinned with Besigheim in Germany and Ay in France.

Bridford is a village and civil parish in south west England, located in the Teign Valley, Devon on the edge of Dartmoor. The parish is surrounded by the parishes of Dunsford, Doddiscombsleigh, Christow, and Moretonhampstead. At the 2011 census the population of the parish was 503, compared with 404 in 1901.

The ecclesiastical title of archpriest or archpresbyter belongs to certain priests with supervisory duties over a number of parishes. The term is most often used in Eastern Orthodoxy and the Eastern Catholic Churches and may be somewhat analogous to a monsignor, vicar forane or dean in the Latin Church, but in the Eastern churches an archpriest wears an additional vestment and, typically, a pectoral cross, and becomes an archpriest via a liturgical ceremony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abbotskerswell</span> Village in Devon, England

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The Rev. William Keble Martin was a Church of England priest, botanist and botanical illustrator, known for his Concise British Flora in Colour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kingskerswell</span> Village in Devon, England

Kingskerswell is a village and civil parish within Teignbridge local government district in the south of Devon, England. The village grew up where an ancient track took the narrowest point across a marshy valley and it is of ancient foundation, being mentioned in the Domesday Book. It has a church dating back to the 14th century and the ruins of a manor house of similar date. The coming of the railway in the 1840s had a large effect on the village, starting its conversion into a commuter town. The village is a major part of the electoral ward called Kerswell-with-Combe. This ward had a population of 5,679 at the 2011 census.

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The River Lemon is a 9.9 miles river in the county of Devon in southwest England. It is a tributary of the River Teign, starting on Dartmoor by Haytor, and ending in Newton Abbot. It rises on the south-east side of Dartmoor near Haytor, joins with the River Sig and the Langworthy Brook at Sigford, then passes the village of Bickington. Lower down, it is joined by the Kestor Brook and it then flows through the woods in Bradley Valley, past the manor house of Bradley, and through the town of Newton Abbot where it flows through a 440-yard-long tunnel below the town centre. Just below the town, the river joins the River Teign at 50.517°N 3.607°W, near the head of its estuary.

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Trusham is a small village in the Teign Valley, between Newton Abbot and Exeter, in Devon, England. The name originates from the Celtic Trisma, meaning "brushwood" or "fallen leaves". It became Trisme for about 400 years, and then in the 16th century Tryssame or Trysham. A pub, the Cridford Inn, was opened in 1985 by converting part of an old farmhouse and adjoining barn.

Combeinteignhead or Combe-in-Teignhead is a village in Teignbridge, South Devon, England. It lies within the civil parish of Haccombe with Combe, between Newton Abbot and Shaldon, about half a mile (1 km) inland from the estuary of the River Teign.

Stokeinteignhead is a village and civil parish in the Teignbridge district of Devon, England, above the southern bank of the estuary of the River Teign. The parish has a short boundary on the estuary, and is otherwise surrounded, clockwise from the north, by the parishes of Shaldon, Torbay, Coffinswell and Haccombe with Combe. It is twinned with the French commune of Trévières, Calvados.

Haccombe is a village and former civil parish and historic manor, now in the parish of Haccombe with Combe, in the Teignbridge district, in the county of Devon, England. It is situated 2 1/2 miles east of Newton Abbot, in the south of the county. It is possibly the smallest parish in England, and was said in 1810 to be remarkable for containing only two inhabited houses, namely the manor house known as Haccombe House and the parsonage. Haccombe House is a "nondescript Georgian structure" (Pevsner), rebuilt shortly before 1795 by the Carew family on the site of an important mediaeval manor house. In 1881 the parish had a population of 14. On 25 March 1885 the parish was abolished and merged with Combe in Teignhead and to form "Haccombe with Combe".

The Aller Vale Pottery was formed in 1865 on the northern edge of the village of Kingskerswell in South Devon, England on the likely site of a medieval pottery. It became well known for the creation of art pottery at the end of the 19th century and gained Royal patronage, but declined thereafter, closing on this site in about 1924. The name continued in use until 1962 related to the production of mass-produced motto ware for the tourist market.

The hundred of Haytor was the name of one of thirty two ancient administrative units of Devon, England. The hundred covered the coastal area between the River Teign and River Dart. It was likely named after a lost village located somewhere between Totnes and Newton Abbot.

The Aller Brook is a stream that flows for 5.0 miles (8 km) through Devon, England. It is a primary tributary of the River Teign, which it joins near Newton Abbot.

Haccombe with Combe is a civil parish in the Teignbridge local government district of Devon, England. The parish lies immediately to the east of the town of Newton Abbot, and south of the estuary of the River Teign. Across the estuary are the parishes of Kingsteignton and Bishopsteignton. The parish is bordered on the east by Stokeinteignhead and on the south by Coffinswell. Most of the southern boundary of the parish follows the minor ridge road that runs between the suburbs of Milber in Newton Abbot and Barton in Torquay and it bisects the Iron Age hill fort of Milber Down.

Middle Rocombe is a hamlet in Devon, England. It lies just over 1 mile to the West of the nearest village, Stokeinteignhead, and is located about 3 miles from Newton Abbot, lying within the Teignbridge district of Devon. It is situated in the Rocombe valley surrounded by the neighbouring hamlets of Higher and Lower Rocombe and is bordered by Coffinswell and Haccombe over the valley. The hamlet consists of a handful of houses, including a traditional, thatched cottage.

References

↑ Cherry, Bridget & Pevsner, Nikolaus (1989). The Buildings of England - Devon. Harmondsworth [Eng.]: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-071050-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
↑ John Carnell (February 2008). Will of Archpriest of Haccombe. ISBN 9781408680261 . Retrieved 9 June 2009.
↑ J. E. B. Gover, A. Mawer and F. M. Stenton, The Place-Names of Devon, English Place-Name Society, 9 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932), p. 512.
↑ Eilert Ekwall, Studies on English Place-Names, Kungl. Vitterhets historie och antikvitets akademiens handlingar, 42.1 (Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand, 1936), pp. 85–86.
↑ Martin, W. Keble (1968) Over the Hills --- London: Michael Joseph; pp. 87-95
↑ Lord Kingsale was a director of the Moran Tea Company in Assam: Martin (1968); pp. 94-95

50°30′N3°34′W / 50.500°N 3.567°W

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[1] Cherry, Bridget & Pevsner, Nikolaus (1989). The Buildings of England - Devon. Harmondsworth [Eng.]: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-071050-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[2] John Carnell (February 2008). Will of Archpriest of Haccombe. ISBN 9781408680261 . Retrieved 9 June 2009.

[3] J. E. B. Gover, A. Mawer and F. M. Stenton, The Place-Names of Devon, English Place-Name Society, 9 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932), p. 512.

[4] Eilert Ekwall, Studies on English Place-Names, Kungl. Vitterhets historie och antikvitets akademiens handlingar, 42.1 (Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand, 1936), pp. 85–86.

[5] Martin, W. Keble (1968) Over the Hills --- London: Michael Joseph; pp. 87-95

[6] Lord Kingsale was a director of the Moran Tea Company in Assam: Martin (1968); pp. 94-95

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