Sandford is a village and civil parish in the Mid Devon district, within Devon, England. The parish, which includes the hamlets of East Village and Newbuildings, had a population of 1,268 at the 2021 census.
The village has its own community-owned shop and post office, two pubs, a Primary school, a church, St Swithuns with a font of Caen stone, and minor football and cricket teams.
It is linked by cycle/foot path to nearby Crediton through the Millennium Green – a wild flower meadow with herb garden, example of cob walling, and a large pond. An annual pumpkin growing competition is held there in late September.
The Grade II listed school main building dates from 1825, and is notable for its classical Greek architecture and cob walls, thought to be the highest of their kind in the country.[2]
The area surrounding the town of Crediton is particularly well populated with important historic estates. Those within the parish of Sandford include Dowrich, Creedy, Ruxford and West Sandford.
Dowrich, 15th century gatehouse, viewed in 2011
Dowrich (anciently Dowrish) was the seat of the ancient gentry family of Dowrish (originally de Dowrish) between the 12th century and 1717.[3] The family built a castle keep on the site.[4] A 15th century gatehouse survives there today, next to the ancient mansion house.[5] An elaborate monumental brass survives in Sandford Church to the wife of Walter Dowrish, namely Mary Carew (1550–1604).
Creedy Park
Creedy Park was long the seat of the Davie Baronets and their heirs the Ferguson-Davie Baronets, influential in the life of the parish of Sandford, to many members of which family survive monuments in the parish church. Sandford School was built in 1825, in the form of a classical Greek temple, by Sir Humphrey Phineas Davie, 10th Baronet (1775–1846).
The estate of Ruxford is recorded in a charter dated 930 in which a large estate was granted to the canons of Crediton Church.[6] The existing farmhouse known as Ruxford Barton was rebuilt in 1608 by the Chichester family, as is evidenced by a strapwork cartouche in plaster-work displaying the arms of that family with initials and date 1608.[7] In 1618 Ruxford Barton was purchased from by Emmanuel Davie, a "clothier of Crediton". In about 1620 a plaster escutcheon was affixed inside the house showing the de Via arms of the Davie family impaled with the arms of Northcote,[8] the arms of the family of his first wife Katherine Northcote (d.1620).[9]
"Sandford, seat of Sir John Chichester, Bart.". Water-colour painting by John Swete, 1797. Devon Record Office, 564M/F11/118
West Sandford was a very large mansion about 2 1/2 miles north-west of Crediton, near the estate of Ruxford, of which a watercolour painting was made in 1797 by the Devon topographer John Swete. Swete wrote of West Sandford in his Travel Journal in 1797:
The appearance of this house, built with brick and decorated with white mouldings, is of great respectability. Its contiguous gardens with high walls and large gates and the groves that shelter it on the NE speak it to have been the residence of some person of consequence who had a relish for things of former days and was too advanced in years to adopt the improvements of modern taste. It was long the property and abode of Lady Chichester and by her decease a few years ago became a possession of Sir John Chichester of Youlston, Bart. Beheld in its two fronts from a rising point of the public road it had such extent of building as to possess a degree of magnificence; nor has it less to recommend itself for its situation, having spread out before its windows some of the richest pasture ground in the county. What ingredients of the picturesque, taking advantage of the road as a foreground, may enter into the composition of the scenery, may be collected from the following sketch.[10]
Lady Chichester was Frances Quicke, daughter of Andrew Quicke (1666–1736) of Newton St. Cyres, to whose second husband, Sir John Chichester, 4th Baronet (1689–1740) of Youlston Park,[11][12][13] the estate of West Sandford appears to have descended. The large house had already been demolished by 1822 as reported by Lysons, who stated the estate was then owned by John Quicke, Esq.[14]
Governance
Sandford Parish Council is the lowest form of local government that covers this rural parish.[15]
↑ Hoskins, W.G., A New Survey of England: Devon, London, 1959 (first published 1954), p.276
↑ Hoskins, W.G., A New Survey of England: Devon, 1959, p.473
↑ Hoskins, W.G., A New Survey of England: Devon, 1959, p.473; Pevsner & Cherry, The Buildings of England: Devon, 2004, p.719
↑ Information on armorials as given by Ferguson-Davie, Sir Michael, 8th Baronet, author of The Davies of Devon in posting
↑ Vivian, Lt.Col. J.L., (Ed.) The Visitations of the County of Devon: Comprising the Heralds' Visitations of 1531, 1564 & 1620, Exeter, 1895, p.272
↑ Gray, Todd & Rowe, Margery (Eds.), Travels in Georgian Devon: The Illustrated Journals of The Reverend John Swete, 1789-1800, Vol.3, Tiverton, 1999, p.120
↑ Burke's Genealogical & Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of GB & Ireland (Quicke of Newton St Cyres), where Francis Hall is stated as of "West Sandford"
↑ Vivian, Heraldic Visitations of Devon, 1895, pp.854-5, Quicke of Newton St Cyres
↑ "Key Statistics". Office for National Statistics. Tables KS001 (Usual resident population) and KS016 (Household spaces and accommodation type). Retrieved 23 June 2025.
↑ "Key Statistics". Office for National Statistics. Table KS101EW (Usual resident population) and Table KS105EW (Household composition). Retrieved 23 June 2025.
↑ "Parish Profiles". 2021 United Kingdom census. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 5 August 2024.
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