Place:Ashton, Devon, England

Watchers
NameAshton
Alt namesHigher Ashtonsource: village in parish
Upper Ashtonsource: another name for above
Lower Ashtonsource: village in parish
TypeAncient parish, Civil parish
Coordinates50.65°N 3.617°W
Located inDevon, England
See alsoExminster Hundred, Devon, Englandhundred of which the parish was a part
St. Thomas Rural, Devon, Englandrural district 1894-1974
Teignbridge District, Devon, Englanddistrict municipality covering the area since 1974
the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Ashton (#3 on map) is a civil parish in the Teignbridge District of Devon, England.

According to the 2001 UK census it had a population of 174, and a population of 203 according to the 2011 UK census. The parish consists of two villages, Higher Ashton and Lower Ashton, and is on the edge of the Dartmoor National Park. The France Brook flows through most of Ashton just south of its main road, and along Ashton's eastern boundary flows the River Teign. The parish is located approximately 13km north of Newton Abbot, and roughly 10km to the southwest of its nearest city, Exeter. Ashton has always been mostly considered for its agriculture, but one of its most notifiable landmarks is the St John the Baptist church located near Higher Ashton.

The manor was long the seat of the Chudleigh family, from about 1320 to 1745, which originated at the manor of Chudleigh, 3 miles south of Ashton, and for which was created the Chudleigh baronetcy in 1622. It was Sir George Chudleigh who was the 1st Baronet during the English Civil War and sided with Parliament first and then with the Royalists later on. Ashton became the birthplace of a long line of Chudleigh family members.

The following description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 is provided by the website A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography).

"ASHTON, a parish in St. Thomas' [registration] district, Devon; adjoining the river Teign, 4 miles N of Chudleigh, and 6½ WSW of Exminster [railway] station. Post Town: Chudleigh under Newton Abbot. Acres: 1,709. Real property: £1,985. Population: 347. Houses: 66. Viscount Exmouth is lord of the manor, and owns most of the land.
"The Chudleighs were proprietors for several hundred years; and their mansion, some remains of which still exist, was garrisoned for King Charles I., and taken by the Parliamentarians. Manganese ore is mined.
"The living is a rectory in the diocese of Exeter. Value: £230. Patron: the Rev. George Ware. The church is a small ancient edifice, with square turreted tower. Charities, £6.
Image:St. Thomas RD complete small.png

Research Tips

(revised Jul 2021)

  • Ordnance Survey Map of Devonshire North and Devonshire South are large-scale maps covering the whole of Devon between them. They show the parish boundaries when Rural Districts were still in existence and before the mergers of parishes that took place in 1935 and 1974. When expanded the maps can show many of the small villages and hamlets inside the parishes. These maps are now downloadable for personal use but they can take up a lot of computer memory.
  • GENUKI has a selection of maps showing the boundaries of parishes in the 19th century. The contribution from "Know Your Place" on Devon is a huge website yet to be discovered in detail by this contributor.
  • Devon has three repositories for hands-on investigation of county records. Each has a website which holds their catalog of registers and other documents.
  • There is, however, a proviso regarding early records for Devon. Exeter was badly hit in a "blitz" during World War II and the City Library, which then held the county archives, was burnt out. About a million books and historic documents went up in smoke. While equivalent records--particularly wills--are quite easy to come by for other English counties, some records for Devon and surrounding counties do not exist.
  • Devon Family History Society Mailing address: PO Box 9, Exeter, EX2 6YP, United Kingdom. The society has branches in various parts of the county. It is the largest Family History Society in the United Kingdom. The website has a handy guide to each of the parishes in the county and publishes the registers for each of the Devon dioceses on CDs.
  • This is the home page to the GENUKI Devon website. It has been updated since 2015 and includes a lot of useful information on each parish.
  • Devon has a Online Parish Clerk (OPC) Project which can be reached through GENUKI. Only about half of the parishes have a volunteer contributing local data. For more information, consult the website, especially the list at the bottom of the homepage.
  • Magna Britannia, Volume 6 by Daniel Lysons and Samuel Lysons. A general and parochial history of the county. Originally published by T Cadell and W Davies, London, 1822, and placed online by British History Online. This is a volume of more than 500 pages of the history of Devon, parish by parish. It is 100 years older than the Victoria County Histories available for some other counties, but equally thorough in its coverage. Contains information that may have been swept under the carpet in more modern works.
  • There is a cornucopia of county resources at Devon Heritage. Topics are: Architecture, Census, Devon County, the Devonshire Regiment, Directory Listings, Education, Genealogy, History, Industry, Parish Records, People, Places, Transportation, War Memorials. There are fascinating resources you would never guess that existed from those topic titles. (NOTE: There may be problems reaching this site. One popular browser provider has put a block on it. This may be temporary, or it may be its similarity in name to the Devon Heritage Centre at Exeter.)
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Ashton, Devon. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.