South Molton | |
---|---|
Location within Devon | |
Population | 6,354 (Parish, 2021) [1] 6,225 (Built up area, 2021) [2] |
District | |
Shire county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | South Molton |
Postcode district | EX36 |
Dialling code | 01769 |
Police | Devon and Cornwall |
Fire | Devon and Somerset |
Ambulance | South Western |
UK Parliament | |
South Molton is a town and civil parish in Devon, England. It is part of the North Devon local government district. The town is on the River Mole.
South Molton is a market town trading mostly in sheep and cattle. There was a railway station on the Devon Railway until 1966, when the branch line was closed. [3] It is situated on the southern side of Exmoor just off the A361 North Devon link road, which in part follows the route of the railway line.
The Hundred of South Molton was a pre-Norman administrative centre overseeing the estates of: South Molton, Bishops Tawton, Bray, Bremeridge, Aller, Molland, Anstey, Swimbridge, Ringcombe, Newton, Whitstone, Knowstone, George Nympton, Honiton, North Aller, Hacche, Radworthy, Pulham, Satterleigh, Chittlehampton, Wadham and Swimbridge.
"In South Molton hundred there are 22 hides." (roughly 2640 acres) [5]
References to South Molton as an estate in the 1086 Domesday Book (Exon),
"The king has 1 estate which is called South Molton, which King Eadweard held on the day that he himself was alive and dead. In that estate is 1 virgate and a half of land. 40 ploughs can plough this. There the king has 1 plough and the villans have 20 ploughs. There the king [has] 12 villans and 4 bordars and 2 slaves and 12 swineherds and 9 beasts and woodland 1 league in length and 3 furlongs in width, and 10 acres of meadow and 30 acres of grazing-land; and it pays 10 pounds a year by weight." [5]
To this estate has been added half a virgate of land, called Ringedona; and it is worth 5 shillings a year." [5]
"In South Molton, the king’s estate, 4 clerks (priests) have 1 virgate of land, which they hold in alms from the king; and it is worth twenty shillings a year." Domesday Book [5]
"In the hundred of South Molton there is 1 ferding of land which 1 plough can plough and it is lying completely ruined. None of the men claims this." Domesday Book [5]
On 14 March 1655, Sir John Penruddock was captured after a three-hour street fight in South Molton by soldiers of the New Model Army under the command of Captain Unton Croke. This ended the Penruddock uprising, a conspiracy to restore Charles II to the throne of England.
In 1770 William Turner moved from South Molton to London to trade as a barber and wig maker. Around 1775 he had a son Joseph Mallord William Turner who lived in covent Garden until he was ten years old when he was sent to live with uncles in Brentford. J M W Turner later went on to become one of Englands most famous painters.
There are three tiers of local government covering South Molton, at parish (town), district and county level: South Molton Town Council, North Devon Council (based in Barnstaple) and Devon County Council (based in Exeter). South Molton Town Council is based at the Amory Centre at 125 East Street, which also serves as an area office for North Devon Council. [6] [7]
South Molton was an ancient borough, having been incorporated by Elizabeth I in 1590. [8] It was reformed to become a municipal borough in 1836, governed by a corporate body officially called the "mayor, aldermen and burgesses of the borough of South Molton", generally known as the corporation or town council. [9] The council met at the Town Hall (also known as the Guildhall) on Broad Street, first completed in 1743. In 1926 the council bought 1 East Street and converted it to become their main offices. [10] [11]
Between 1901 and 1961 the population of South Molton was relatively static; in 1901 the population was 2,848 and in 1961 it was 2,993. [12] By the 1960s the town was unusually small for somewhere with borough status. The government introduced a new type of borough called rural boroughs in 1958, allowing such small boroughs to be absorbed into a neighbouring district whilst retaining certain civic dignities. South Molton was converted to become a rural borough in 1967, becoming part of the surrounding South Molton Rural District. The town council thereafter had the powers of a parish council, but with some additional ceremonial powers, such as the ability to appoint a mayor. [13]
Local government was reformed again in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, with South Molton Rural District Council being abolished and the area being transferred to the new district of North Devon. [14] The rural borough of South Molton was converted into a civil parish at the same time, but parishes were given the right to declare themselves to be towns and appoint a mayor, which the parish council at South Molton duly did, allowing it to take the name South Molton Town Council. [15]
The town council continued to be based at 1 East Street until 2008 when it moved to new premises at the Amory Centre at 125 East Street. [16] Council meetings are held both at the Amory Centre and the Town Hall. [17]
There are good local educational facilities, South Molton Community College [18] which is a state secondary school rated as a specialist technology college.
South Molton Primary School was one of the schools studied in the 1950s by Iona and Peter Opie. [19]
The Guildhall, constructed between 1739 and 1743, contains many ornamental features and entire rooms from Stowe House in Cornwall, built by the Earl of Bath in 1675 and dismantled in 1739. [20] The building is a Grade I listed building on the Register of Historic England. [21] Behind it is the town's Pannier Market.
Hugh Squier (1625–1710), a wealthy local merchant, was a great benefactor of South Molton. Son of William Squier of Townhouse, now a farmhouse about 1 mile west of the town, he made his fortune in London and returned home at the age of 29. He purchased the lordship of the manor of South Molton, which feudal position entitled him to the fees and tolls levied at the town's markets and fairs.
His children all died young and having no heirs he thus decided to devote his wealth to philanthropical causes in his native town. In 1686 he built and endowed a grammar school in East Street, South Molton, known as Hugh Squier's Free School. The original Deed of Endowment and Appointment of Trustees is held at North Devon Record Office in Barnstaple. [22] In 1877 it was amalgamated with the Blue Coat School, founded in 1711, and with the National Schools, founded in 1833. The combined school was known as South Molton United School. [23]
At his death, he left £2,314 to the Corporation of South Molton for cleansing and repairing the streets, along with bequests from his estate in the parish of Swimbridge and the rectory of North Molton which he had acquired. [24] A contemporary portrait of him exists in the Mayor's Parlour in the Town Hall, and a stone bust of him made in 1910, apparently copied from the painting, is displayed on the facade of the same building. A medallion portrait of him hangs from the chain of office of the mayor. [25]
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.
North Devon is a local government district in Devon, England. Its council is based just outside Barnstaple, the district's largest town. The district also includes the towns of Ilfracombe, Lynton and Lynmouth and South Molton along with numerous villages and surrounding rural areas.
Tiverton is a town and civil parish in Devon, England, and the commercial and administrative centre of the Mid Devon district. The population in 2019 was 20,587.
High Bickington is a rural village and civil parish in the Torridge district of Devon, England. The village lies on the B3217 road, around 6 miles (10 km) east of Great Torrington, 8 miles (13 km) south-west of South Molton, and 8 miles (13 km) south of Barnstaple. At the 2011 Census, the parish had a population of 837.
Chulmleigh is a small Saxon hilltop market town and civil parish located in North Devon in the heart of the English county of Devon. It is located 20 miles (32 km) north west of Exeter, just north of the Mid Devon boundary, linked by the A377 and B3096 roads.
Knowstone is a village and civil parish situated in the North Devon district of Devon, England, halfway between the Mid Devon town of Tiverton, Devon and the North Devon town of South Molton. The hamlet of East Knowstone lies due east of the village. Knowstone was the birthplace of Admiral Sir John Berry (1635–1691), second son of Rev. Daniel Berry (1609–1654), vicar of Knowstone cum Molland. An elaborate mural monument erected by Sir John in 1684 to the memory of his parents survives in Molland Church.
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.
Pentecost Dodderidge of Barnstaple in North Devon, was three times Member of Parliament for Barnstaple in 1621, 1624 and 1625.
The Manor of Combe Martin was a medieval manor estate in Combe Martin, Devon, England.
South Radworthy is a hamlet in the civil parish of North Molton, in the North Devon District of the county of Devon, England. It is about three miles to the north of the village of North Molton and about fifteen miles to the east of the town of Barnstaple. The hamlet sits on an unclassified road and is surrounded by woodland.
North Radworthy is a hamlet and historic estate in the civil parish and former manor of North Molton, in the North Devon district of the county of Devon, England. It is about three miles north of the village of North Molton, and about fifteen miles to the east of the town of Barnstaple. The hamlet sits on an unclassified road, and is surrounded to the north, south and west by woodland. North Radworthy Farm is the centre of the historic estate.
The Mayor of Barnstaple together with the Corporation long governed the historic Borough of Barnstaple, in North Devon, England. The seat of government was the Barnstaple Guildhall. The mayor served a term of one year and was elected annually on the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin by a jury of twelve. However Barnstaple was a mesne borough and was held by the Mayor and Corporation in chief not from the king but from the feudal baron of Barnstaple, later known as the lord of the "Castle Manor" or "Castle Court". The Corporation tried on several occasions to claim the status of a "free borough" which answered directly to the monarch and to divest itself of this overlordship, but without success. The mayor was not recognised as such by the monarch, but merely as the bailiff of the feudal baron. The powers of the borough were highly restricted, as was determined by an inquisition ad quod damnum during the reign of King Edward III (1327–1377), which from an inspection of evidence found that members of the corporation elected their mayor only by permission of the lord, legal pleas were held in a court at which the lord's steward, not the mayor, presided, that the borough was taxed by the county assessors, and that the lord held the various assizes which the burgesses claimed. Indeed, the purported ancient royal charter supposedly granted by the Anglo-Saxon King Æthelstan (d.939) and held by the corporation, from which it claimed its borough status, was suspected to be a forgery.
Bremridge is a historic estate within the former hundred of South Molton in Devon, England. It is now within the parish of Filleigh but was formerly in that of South Molton. It is situated 8 miles north-west of South Molton. Since the construction of the nearby A361 North Devon Link Road direct access has been cut off from Bremridge to Filleigh and South Molton. The surviving wing of the mansion house built in 1654 is a Grade II* listed building. Bremridge Wood is the site of an Iron Age enclosure or hill fort, the earthwork of which is situated on a hillside forming a promontory above the River Bray. In Bremridge Wood survives a disused tunnel of the former Great Western Railway line between South Molton and Barnstaple, much of the course of which has been used for the A361. The tunnel is 319 yards long and was identified as "Bremridge Tunnel" in the 1889 Ordnance Survey map but as "Castle Hill Tunnel" in subsequent editions.
Hugh Squier (1625-1710) of Petty France, Westminster, was a wealthy merchant best remembered as a generous benefactor to the town of South Molton in Devon, the place of his birth, where in 1684 he founded a "free school".
The Mayor of South Molton in Devon is an ancient historical office which survives at the present time. In the Middle Ages the town of South Molton was incorporated by royal charter into a borough governed by a mayor and Corporation. This enabled the inhabitants to free themselves from the jurisdiction of the lord of the manor of South Molton and to subject themselves instead to the jurisdiction of the king.
The Guildhall in Barnstaple in Devon in the United Kingdom is the Guildhall for the town and was completed in 1828, replacing an earlier Guildhall. Beneath and behind the Guildhall is the Pannier Market; completed in 1855, the building has been a Grade II* listed building since 19 January 1951.
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