Otterton | |
---|---|
Fore Street, Otterton | |
Location within Devon | |
Population | 656 (2011 census) |
OS grid reference | SY080851 |
Civil parish |
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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 | |
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]
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 by 1000 AD had become the centre of one of the major rural communities in Devon because of its favourable location and rich resources. [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]
The Kings Arms is Otterton's only pub. It opened in the 1700s [9] and was rebuilt in 1889. [10] Today, it also serves as a restaurant and hotel. [11]
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. [12]
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. [13]
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.
Budleigh Salterton is a seaside town on the coast in East Devon, England, 15 miles (24 km) south-east of Exeter. It lies within the East Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and forms much of the electoral ward of Budleigh, whose ward population at the 2021 census was 7,671.
Otterton Water Mill is at the village of Otterton, near Budleigh Salterton in Devon, England.
The River Otter is a river that rises in the Blackdown Hills just inside the county of Somerset, England near Otterford, then flows south through East Devon. It enters the English Channel at the western end of Lyme Bay, part of the Jurassic Coast, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Permian and Triassic sandstone aquifer in the Otter Valley is one of Devon's largest groundwater sources, supplying drinking water to 200,000 people.
East Budleigh is a small village in East Devon, England. The villages of Yettington, Colaton Raleigh, and Otterton lie to the west, north and east of East Budleigh, with the seaside town of Budleigh Salterton about two miles south. Until the River Otter to the east silted up, the village was a market town and port; it was still being used by ships in the 15th century, according to John Leland.
Woodbury is a village and civil parish in East Devon in the English county of Devon, 7 miles (11 km) south east of the city of Exeter. At the 2011 Census the village had a population of 1,605, and the parish had a population of 3,466. It lies on the east bank of the Exe Estuary, has borders – clockwise from the estuary – with the district of Exeter and then the parishes of Clyst St George, Clyst St Mary, Farringdon, Colaton Raleigh, Bicton and Lympstone. Woodbury is part of the electoral ward of Woodbury and Lympstone whose population at the 2011 Census was 5,260.
Bicton is a civil parish and a former manor in the East Devon district of Devon, England, near the town of Budleigh Salterton. The parish is surrounded, clockwise from the north, by the parishes of Colaton Raleigh, Otterton, East Budleigh and Woodbury. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 280. Much of the parish consists of Bicton Park, designed by André Le Nôtre, the French landscape architect and the principal gardener of the Sun King, Louis XIV, who designed the gardens of the Palace of Versailles. It is the historic home of the Rolle family, with Bicton Common, adjacent to Woodbury Common, in the west. The parish includes the village of Yettington on its southern border.
Ladram Bay is a secluded bay with a pebble beach, on the south coast of Devon, England between the coastal towns of Budleigh Salterton and Sidmouth. It is about 11 miles southeast of Exeter, just under 2 mi (3 km) southwest of Sidmouth and about 2+1⁄2 miles (4 km) northeast of Budleigh Salterton.
John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle was a British politician and 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 is a village and civil parish in East Devon, England. The parish is surrounded clockwise from the north by the parishes of Aylesbeare, Newton Poppleford and Harpford, Otterton, Bicton, Woodbury and a small part of Farringdon.
Bicton House, or Bickton House, is a late 18th- or early 19th-century country house, which stands on the campus of Bicton College, Bicton, near Exmouth, East Devon. It is a Grade II* listed building. The park and gardens are Grade I listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Danger Point is a coastal feature and cliff face in Devon, on the south coast of England. It is about 18 kilometres (11 mi) southeast of the city of Exeter and about 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) east of Exmouth and lies between the towns of Budleigh Salterton and Sidmouth.
The hundred of East Budleigh was the name of one of thirty two ancient administrative units of Devon, England.
Hon. Mark George Kerr Rolle, of Stevenstone, St Giles in the Wood, Devon, was High Sheriff of Devon in 1864, a DL of Devon and High Steward of Barnstaple.
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.
Robert Rolle of Stevenstone, in Devon, was an English landowner and Tory politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons between 1701 and 1710.
Denys Rolle was a British politician and landowner who was an independent member of parliament for Barnstaple 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.
The Manor of Otterton was a medieval manor in East Devon, England.
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.
Newton Poppleford and Harpford is a civil parish in East Devon, England. It is surrounded clockwise from the north by the parishes of Ottery St Mary, Sidmouth, Otterton, Colaton Raleigh and Aylesbeare. The parish includes the large village of Newton Poppleford, and also includes the smaller settlements of Harpford, Burrow, Southerton and Venn Ottery. As of 2019, it has a population of 2,153.