Otterton

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Otterton
Otterton Devon.jpg
Fore Street, Otterton
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Otterton
Location within Devon
Population656 (2011 census)
OS grid reference SY080851
Civil parish
  • Otterton
District
Shire county
Region
Country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town BUDLEIGH SALTERTON
Postcode district EX9
Dialling code 01395
Police Devon and Cornwall
Fire Devon and Somerset
Ambulance South Western
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
Devon
50°39′29″N3°18′04″W / 50.658178°N 3.301008°W / 50.658178; -3.301008 Coordinates: 50°39′29″N3°18′04″W / 50.658178°N 3.301008°W / 50.658178; -3.301008

Otterton is a village and civil parish in East Devon, England. The parish lies on the English Channel and is surrounded clockwise from the south by the parishes of East Budleigh, Bicton, Colaton Raleigh, Newton Poppleford and Harpford and Sidmouth. [1] In 2001 its population was 700, compared to 622 a hundred years earlier. [2] At the 2011 census the population had reduced to 656. [3] Otterton is part of Raleigh electoral ward whose total population at the above census was 2,120. [4]

Contents

Village

The village is located on the east bank of the River Otter, east of the B3178 road and the village of East Budleigh. It is about a mile inland of Ladram Bay, on the Jurassic Coast. It was first settled by the Saxons and because of its favourable location and rich resources was by 1000 AD the centre of one of the major rural communities in Devon. [5] Burials in the churchyard ceased in 1986. [6] The village, which includes cob and thatched cottages, is described at some length by Pevsner as "an instructive example of local building from the 16th century onwards". [7] It is the location of Otterton Mill, a watermill and craft centre.

The Budleigh Salterton Railway, which was open from 1897 to 1967, ran along the valley of the River Otter. The station known as East Budleigh was closer to Otterton, being just over the river from the village. The platform and station building survive as a private house. [8]

Parish

Otterton civil parish is bounded by the coast on the east and the River Otter on the west; these two bounds meet at the mouth of the river, just east of the town of Budleigh Salterton, after passing through the 57-acre (230,000 m2) Otter Estuary Nature Reserve - a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The northern parish boundary leaves the river near Colaton Raleigh and swings south to meet the coast at Peak Hill, west of Sidmouth. [9]

About ¾ of a mile west along the coast from Peak Hill is High Peak, a 157-metre high cliff. Excavations into the earthworks on top of this have shown habitation in the Iron Age, Roman period and in the 6th–8th centuries AD. Many of these earthworks have been lost to the sea by erosion. [2] The cliffs below High Peak have yielded rare fossils from the Middle Triassic age, for example Mastodonsaurus. [10]

Manor

The church, dedicated to St Michael, belonged to the monastery of Mont Saint-Michel at the time of the Domesday Book in 1086. After passing through ownership by Syon Abbey in the 15th century, the manor with the advowson was bought by Richard Duke (c. 1515–1572) at the Dissolution of the Monasteries. [2] Duke converted some of the monastic buildings into a mansion, part of which still exists to the north of the present-day church, which was rebuilt in 1869–71 at the sole expense of Lady Rolle to the design of Benjamin Ferrey. [7] In 1786 the manor of Otterton, with several other manors, was sold by the heirs of the Duke family for the huge sum of £72,000 to Denys Rolle (1725–1797) of nearby Bicton, and of Stevenstone, the largest landowner in Devon.

Related Research Articles

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Exmouth Seaside resort town in Devon, England

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Otterton Mill Water mill in Devon, England

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River Otter, Devon River in Somerset and Devon, England

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East Budleigh Village in Devon, England

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Woodbury, East Devon Village in Devon, England

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Bicton, Devon Village and civil parish in Devon, UK

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Ladram Bay Bay on the south coast of Devon, England

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John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle

John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle was a British peer who served as a Member of Parliament in general support of William Pitt the Younger and was later an active member of the House of Lords. His violent attacks on Edmund Burke and Charles James Fox in the early 1780s led to his being the target for satirical attack in the Rolliad. He was colonel of the South Devon Militia and was instrumental in forming the Royal 1st Devon Yeomanry and the North Devon Yeomanry.

Colaton Raleigh Village in Devon, England

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Tipton St John is a village in the civil parish of Ottery St Mary in the English county of Devon. It has a population of around 350. The village is built on rising ground overlooking the River Otter.

Bicton House, Devon

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Danger Point Cliff face in Devon, England

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The hundred of East Budleigh was the name of one of thirty two ancient administrative units of Devon, England.

Mark Rolle

Hon. Mark George Kerr Rolle (1835–1907), of Stevenstone, St Giles in the Wood, Devon, was High Sheriff of Devon in 1864, a DL of Devon and High Steward of Barnstaple. Due to an inheritance from his uncle by marriage, John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle (1750–1842), he became the largest private landowner in Devon, and according to the Return of Owners of Land, 1873 his landholdings, of which he was life-tenant under his uncle's will, extended to 55,000 acres. He was a prolific philanthropist and builder and restorer of churches, farmhouses and cottages, the latter for his estate workers.

Richard Duke (English lawyer)

Richard Duke was a lawyer and served as Clerk of the Court of Augmentations which position assisted him in acquiring large grants of former monastic lands in the West Country following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. He served as MP for Weymouth in 1545 and for Dartmouth in 1547 and as Sheriff of Devon in 1563–64.

Denys Rolle (died 1797)

Denys Rolle of Hudscott, Beam, Stevenstone and Bicton in Devon and East Tytherley in Hampshire, was an independent Member of Parliament for Barnstaple, Devon, between 1761 and 1774. He inherited a large number of estates and by the time of his death he was the largest landowner in Devon. He was a philanthropist and generous benefactor to charities and religious societies.

Manor of Otterton

The Manor of Otterton was a medieval manor in East Devon, England.

Clinton Devon Estates

Clinton Devon Estates is a land management and property development company which manages the Devonshire estates belonging to Baron Clinton, the largest private landowner in Devon, England. Lord Clinton is of the Fane-Trefusis family, and is seated at Heanton Satchville in the parish of Huish, in Devon. The organisation's headquarters are situated on part of the estate at the "Rolle Estate Office" in the Bicton Arena at East Budleigh, near Budleigh Salterton, East Devon.

References

  1. "Map of Devon Parishes" (PDF). Devon County Council. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 November 2013. Retrieved 20 June 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 Harris, Helen (2004). A Handbook of Devon Parishes. Tiverton: Halsgrove. p. 129. ISBN   1-84114-314-6.
  3. "Parish population 2011". CityPopulation.de. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
  4. "Raleigh Ward 2011". UKCensusData.com. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
  5. Millington, Gerald. "A History of the Otter Estuary, Ice-age to Saxon period. Budleigh Salterton, Otterton, East Budleigh". Otter Valley Association. Retrieved 1 July 2010.
  6. "No. 50472". The London Gazette (Supplement). 27 March 1986. p. 4373.
  7. 1 2 Pevsner, Nikolaus (1989) [1952]. Cherry, Bridget (ed.). The Buildings of England: Devon. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 614–615. ISBN   0-14-071050-7.
  8. Catford, Nick. "East Budleigh Station". Disused Stations. Retrieved 2 July 2010.
  9. Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 scale map. Sheet 115: Exmouth & Sidmouth (2004)
  10. "Educational Register of Geological Sites: Ladram Bay to Sidmouth" (PDF). Devon County Council. Retrieved 2 July 2010.