Barnstaple is a river-port town and civil parish in the North Devon district of Devon, England. The town lies at the River Taw's lowest crossing point before the Bristol Channel. From the 14th century, it was licensed to export wool from which it earned great wealth. Later it imported Irish wool, but its harbour silted up and other trades developed such as shipbuilding, foundries and sawmills. A Victorian market building survives, with a high glass and timber roof on iron columns.
South Tawton is a village, parish and former manor on the north edge of Dartmoor, Devon, England. An electoral ward bearing the same name exists. At the 2011 census the population was 1,683.
Colebrooke is a village and parish in Devon, England about 8 km west of Crediton. The main point of interest is the church and the connection to Henry Kingsley's novel The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn. Also Uncle Tom Cobley, of the folk song, signed his will at Pascoe House, but is buried 4 miles west at Spreyton. The champion Devon wrestler, Abraham Cann was born and buried here. He won the all-comers wrestling crown in London.
Cadhay is an historic estate in the parish of Ottery St Mary in Devon, England, 10 miles (16 km) east of Exeter and 5 miles (8 km) from the sea at Sidmouth. The mansion house known as Cadhay House, 1 mile (2 km) north-west of Ottery St Mary village, is a grade I listed Elizabethan building.
Goodleigh is a village, civil parish and former manor in North Devon, England. The village lies about 2+1⁄2 miles (4 km) north-east of the historic centre of Barnstaple. Apart from one adjunct at the south, it is generally a linear settlement.
Swimbridge is a village, parish and former manor in Devon, England. It is situated 4 miles (6.4 km) south-east of Barnstaple and twinned with the town of St.Honorine Du Fay in Normandy, France. It was the home of the Rev. John "Jack" Russell who first bred the Jack Russell Terrier.
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".
Sir John Fowell, 3rd Baronet of Fowelscombe in the parish of Ugborough in Devon, was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1689 to 1692.
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.
Pilton House in the parish of Pilton, near Barnstaple, North Devon, Ex31, is an historic grade II listed Georgian mansion house built in 1746 by Robert Incledon (1676-1758), twice Mayor of Barnstaple, who was from nearby Braunton. It is situated almost in the centre of the ancient town of Pilton, but had formerly extensive grounds covering at least 20 acres, which extended down "Pilton Lawn", now built over, to the River Yeo. It later served as the residence for various Members of Parliament for Barnstaple, for which it was well suited being only a 10-minute walk from the centre of that town, yet in a secluded situation with extensive grounds, and sufficiently large and grand for entertaining borough officials and electors.
Yeotown was a historic estate situated in the parish of Goodleigh, North Devon, about 1 1/2 miles north-east of the historic centre of Barnstaple. The mansion house was remodelled in about 1807 in the neo-gothic style by Robert Newton Incledon (1761-1846), eldest son of Benjamin Incledon (1730-1796) of Pilton House, Pilton, near Barnstaple, an antiquarian and genealogist and Recorder of the Borough of Barnstaple (1758–1796). It was demolished during his lifetime and today only one of the large gatehouse survives, since converted into a farmhouse known as Ivy Lodge. The surviving drawing of the house in the collection of the North Devon Athaneum in Barnstaple shows a large chapel, or small church, with a tall square three-storied pinnacled tower attached to the house.
Wembworthy is a small village, parish and former manor in Mid-Devon, England. It is situated in the valley of the River Taw, 8 miles north-east of the towns of Hatherleigh and 12 miles south of South Molton. St Michael's Church is the parish church, much rebuilt in the 1840s. The vestigial remnants of two mediaeval earthwork castles survive within the parish, one in Heywood Wood, of motte and bailey form, the other to its south of ringwork and bailey form.
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.
Roger Wyck of Bindon in the parish of Axmouth in Devon, was a Member of Parliament for Plympton Erle in 1413.
North Wyke is an historic manor in the parish of South Tawton, Devon. The surviving grade I listed manor house, the original Devonshire seat of the Wyke family from the early 13th century to 1714, retains its basic mediaeval form, but was "improved and reconstructed" by Rev. William Wykes-Finch (d.1920) in 1904, historian and descendant of the Wyke family, to the design of G.H. Fellowes Prynne. Currently, the manor is part of Rothamsted Research's North Wyke site.
Bindon is a historic manor in the parish of Axmouth in Devon, England.
Ernsborough is an historic Saxon estate dating from the 9th or 11th century, situated in the parish of Swimbridge in Devon, England, about 2 miles south-east of the village of Swimbridge. It is best remembered today for having contained during the 14th century a high-status mansion house occupied by the Mules or De Moels family, closely related to Baron Moels of Somerset.
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.
