Tristram Risdon (c. 1580 – 1640) was an English antiquarian and topographer, and the author of Survey of the County of Devon. He was able to devote most of his life to writing this work. After he completed it in about 1632 it circulated around interested people in several manuscript copies for almost 80 years before it was first published by Edmund Curll in a very inferior form. A full version was not published until 1811. Risdon also collected information about genealogy and heraldry in a note-book; this was edited and published in 1897.
Risdon was born at Winscott, in the parish of St Giles in the Wood, near Great Torrington in Devon, England. He was the eldest son of William Risdon (d.1622) and his wife Joan (née Pollard). [3] [lower-alpha 2] William was the younger son of Giles Risdon (1494–1583) of Bableigh, in the parish of Parkham, [4] where Tristram Risdon stated that the family had been seated since before 1274. [9] Risdon also stated that the family originated in Gloucestershire, where during the reign of King Richard I (1189–1199) they were lords of the manor of Risdon. [9]
After a local education, Tristram Risdon studied either at Broadgates Hall or at Exeter College in Oxford, though he left the university without taking any degree. This was supposedly because of the death of his half-sister, Thomazin Barry, upon which he inherited the family estate at Winscott, which required his personal attention. [10]
He married Pascoe Chafe, the daughter of Thomas Chafe of Exeter, on 2 December 1608 and they had four sons and three daughters. From about 1605 to the 1630s he devoted his time to the study of antiquities, especially those of Devon, and the result of his labours was his Survey of the County of Devon. He died at Winscott in 1640 and was interred in St Giles's Church; [3] his mother (died 1610) is commemorated by a monumental brass in the same church. [11]
According to John Prince, who had used the Survey as a source for his Worthies of Devon, [12] Risdon started work on the Survey in 1605 and completed it in 1630. [13] Internal evidence shows, however, that it was not completed until 1632 at the earliest. [3]
Risdon was one of a number of authors who wrote about the topography of Devon between the 17th and early 19th centuries. These authors regularly copied content from earlier works, and Risdon admitted that he had taken much of his Survey from his friend Sir William Pole's manuscript Collections towards a description of the country of Devon. Risdon did, though, make considerable additions and improvements of his own and he acknowledged his debt to Pole "from whose Lamp I have received Light in these my Labours". [14]
However, in organising his survey Risdon chose not to follow Pole's method, which was by the units of county government, and he also rejected the system adopted by Thomas Westcote, another friend, in his A View of Devonshire of 1630, which was based on the courses of the rivers. [3] Instead he decided to begin "...In the east part of the county, and with the sun, to make my gradation into the south, holding course about by the river Tamer[ sic ], to visit such places as are offered to be seen upon her banks. Lastly, to take notice of such remarkable things as the north parts afford". [15]
Unlike his antiquarian contemporaries, Risdon's work does not overly concern itself with genealogy and reads more like a travel book, apparently describing parishes in the same order as he visited them. Concerning his literary style, the opinion of Joyce Youings, former Professor of English Social History at Exeter University, was that although his general description has echoes of John Hooker's writing, "The three hundred pages of topographical detail which follow make extremely tedious reading, unredeemed by [Thomas] Westcote's style." [14]
"... the whole town, within little more than an hour, was consumed; the people in the mean time so amazed that they knew not what to do. Many were burned; namely, one Hartnoll, a blind man, lying in his bed, was carried to the market place for his safety, and yet there burnt..."
Risdon: Survey of Devon, on the Tiverton fire of 1598. [16]
According to Gordon Goodwin, writing in the 1900 Dictionary of National Biography, [17] Risdon was the first documentary source of several old Devonshire stories: of Elflida and Ethelwold, [18] Childe the Hunter, [19] Budockside and his daughter, [lower-alpha 3] and the Tiverton fire. [21]
In its turn, Risdon's Survey has been used as a source for later topographies. For example, apart from John Prince's Worthies of Devon mentioned above, the Lysons brothers credit it and Pole's collections for the details of the descent of the principal landed property in the Devon volume of their Magna Britannia (1822). [22]
After the completion of the Survey, many copies of the manuscript entered into public circulation, none of them exactly agreeing with the others, each having something redundant or deficient. [23] Ten copies of the manuscript are known to survive. [24]
The Survey was first published in 1714 by Edmund Curll, the infamous London bookseller, who extracted the parts he thought would best suit his purpose, and printed them. But shortly before publication, the proposed book appears to have been shown to John Prince, who, being well acquainted with the original, persuaded Curll to publish the remainder as a continuation of the parts already printed. Curll did this in the same year, but it remained a very imperfect version. [12]
In 1785 William Chapple published the first part of his Review of Risdon's Survey of Devon. It contained the general description of the county, but Chapple died before he could complete the work. The first complete edition of the Survey appeared in 1811 and included many additions by uncredited editors. [lower-alpha 4] Its full title is:
The chorographical description, or survey of the county of Devon, with the city and county of Exeter; containing matter of history, antiquity, chronology, the nature of the country, commodities and government thereof; with sundry other things worthy observation. Collected by the travail of Tristram Risdon, of Winscott, Gent. For the love of his Country and Countrymen, in that Province.
This publication was based on the copy of Risdon's manuscript which belonged to John Coles of Stonehouse which after having been compared with others appeared to the editors be the most correct. [25] No work has been done to compare the various manuscript and print versions, and Youings has said that until this is done it will remain unknown exactly what Risdon himself wrote. [14]
Risdon also left a note-book in which he had collected genealogical and heraldic information, mostly about the prominent families of South West England and particularly of Devon. Consisting of 188 foolscap leaves, many left blank, it was transcribed and edited by James Dallas and Henry Porter and published in London in 1897. In the introduction to the book the editors date the majority of its compilation to between 1608 and 1628, making it contemporaneous with his writing of The Survey. [26] The original note-book is in Exeter Cathedral Library. [27]
Yealmpton is a village and civil parish in the English county of Devon. It is located in the South Hams on the A379 Plymouth to Kingsbridge road and is about 8 miles (13 km) from Plymouth. Its name derives from the River Yealm that flows through the village. At the 2001 census, it had a population of 1,923, falling to 1,677 at the 2011 census. There is an electoral ward of the same name. The population of this ward in 2011 was 2,049.
Tamerton Foliot is a village and former civil parish situated in the north of Plymouth, in the Plymouth district, in the ceremonial county of Devon, England. It also lends its name to the ecclesiastical parish of the same name.
St Giles in the Wood is a village and civil parish in the Torridge district of Devon, England. The village lies about 2.5 miles east of the town of Great Torrington, and the parish, which had a population of 566 in 2001 compared with 623 in 1901, is surrounded clockwise from the north by the parishes of Huntshaw, Yarnscombe, High Bickington, Roborough, Beaford, Little Torrington and Great Torrington. Most of the Victorian terraced cottages in the village, on the east side of the church, were built by the Rolle Estate.
Efford is an historic manor formerly in the parish of Eggbuckland, Devon, England. Today it has been absorbed by large, mostly post-World War II, eastern suburb of the city of Plymouth. It stands on high ground approximately 300 feet above the Laira estuary of the River Plym and provides views over long distances: to the north across Dartmoor, to the east and south-east across the South Hams. It consists predominantly of local authority and housing association properties. Before this land was built upon it was known as 'The Wilds of Efford', and was largely unspoilt countryside and marsh land. That a deer park may have been attached to the manor is suggested by the survival of the street name "Deer Park Drive".
Sir William Pole (1561–1635) of Colcombe House in the parish of Colyton, and formerly of Shute House in the parish of Shute, both in Devon, was an English country gentleman and landowner, a colonial investor, Member of Parliament and, most notably, a historian and antiquarian of the County of Devon.
Roborough is a village and civil parish 5.5 mi (8.9 km) from Great Torrington, in Devon, England. Situated topographically on the plateau between the Torridge and Taw Rivers, the parish covers 1,258 ha and contains a population of some 258 parishioners. It is surrounded by a pastoral landscape of rectangular fields, high hedges and scattered farmsteads.
Way is a historic estate in the parish of St Giles in the Wood, Devon. It is situated about 2 miles (3.2 km) north-east of the village of St Giles in the Wood and about 4 miles (6.4 km) north-east of the town of Great Torrington. It was described by Hoskins (1959) as "the fons et origo of the mighty tribe of Pollard" and had been acquired by them from the de la Way family at some time before 1242.
The historic title White Spur was a rare variety of English esquire in Devonshire.
Langley was a historic estate in the parish of Yarnscombe, Devon, situated one mile north-east of the village of Yarnscombe. It was long the seat of a junior branch of the Pollard family of Way in the parish of St Giles in the Wood, Devon, 3 miles to the south.
Bableigh is an historic estate in the parish of Parkham in North Devon, England. It is separated from the village of Parkham by the Bableigh Brook. It was the earliest recorded seat of the Risdon family in Devonshire, from which was descended the Devon historian Tristram Risdon.
Warleigh is an historic estate within the parish of Bickleigh in Devon, about 6 miles from Plymouth. Warleigh House, the manor house of the manor of Tamerton Foliot is situated one mile west of that village on the south-east bank of the River Tavy where it joins the River Tamar. It was remodelled in about 1830 in the Gothic style by John Foulston and has been listed Grade II* on the National Heritage List for England since 1960.
The large parish church of St Giles, which is in the village of St Giles in the Wood, Devon, England, came into being in 1309. When it was restored in 1862–3, many monuments were retained, including the monument and effigy of Thomas Chafe of Dodscott, three monumental brasses, of Alenora Pollard, Margaret Rolle of Stevenstone and a small brass of her husband John Rolle (d.1570). There are also 19th- and 20th-century monuments to the Rolle family.
Sir Hugh Stucley (1496–1559) was the lord of Affeton in Devon, and Sheriff of Devon in 1545. His third son was Thomas Stukley, known as "The Lusty Stucley".
Lyneham in the parish of Yealmpton in Devon, is an historic estate. The surviving grand mansion house known as Lyneham House is a grade I listed building. It was built c.1699-1703 by Sir Courtenay Croker, MP for Plympton Morice in 1699. A drawing of Lyneham House dated 1716 by Edmund Prideaux (1693–1745) of Prideaux Place, Padstow, Cornwall, survives at Prideaux Place. It shows formal gardens in front with flanking pavilions and an orangery.
Richard Crocker of Devon, England, was a Member of Parliament for Tavistock in Devon in 1335. His descendants were the prominent Crocker family of Crocker's Hele in the parish of Meeth, Devon, later seated at Lyneham in the parish of Yealmpton, Devon until 1740.
William Crocker, living during the reign of King Edward III (1327-1377), of Crocker's Hele in the parish of Meeth, Devon, was a Member of Parliament. His descendants were the prominent Crocker family seated at Lyneham in the parish of Yealmpton, Devon until 1740. William Crocker is the earliest member of the family recorded in the Heraldic Visitations of Devon, although one of his ancestors is known to have been Richard Crocker (fl.1335) of Devon, England, a Member of Parliament for Tavistock in Devon in 1335.
Sir John Chichester lord of the manor of Raleigh in the parish of Pilton, near Barnstaple, North Devon, was Sheriff of Devon in 1576/7 and/or in 1585 and died of gaol fever contracted whilst acting as a magistrate at the Lent Black Assizes of Exeter in 1586.
Richard Cole of Bucks in the parish of Woolfardisworthy in North Devon, and of Slade in the parish of Cornwood, South Devon, was a member of the Devonshire gentry whose large monument with effigy survives in All Hallows Church, Woolfardisworthy. Certain modern sources link him to Old King Cole in the synonymous Nursery rhyme.
The manor of Alverdiscott was a manor situated in north Devon, England, which included the village of Alverdiscott.
Hareston is an historic estate in the parish of Brixton, about three miles from Plymouth in Devon. The mansion house built during the reign of King Henry VII (1485-1509) burned down partially in an accidental fire at the beginning of the 18th century, and in 1822 the surviving part, the Hall and Chapel, was being used as a farmhouse. It was described by Candida Lycett Green in her 1991 book The Perfect English Country House as: "The most forgotten Manor House Farm In England, untouched for hundreds of years, sits safely, impossible to find, down miles of private sunken lanes which in the spring brim with Campion, Bluebells, Purple Orchids, Primroses, Violets, Speedwell and Stitchwort. Wooded hills rise behind this, the quintessence of an ancient English Manor House".