Place:Drewsteignton, Devon, England

Watchers
NameDrewsteignton
Alt namesTaintonasource: Domesday Book (1985) p 80
Taintonesource: Domesday Book (1985) p 80
Crockernwellsource: hamlet in parish
Whiddon Downsource: hamlet in parish
Wynbeam Crosssource: settlement in parish
TypeAncient parish, Civil parish
Coordinates50.7°N 3.783°W
Located inDevon, England
See alsoWonford Hundred, Devon, Englandhundred of which the parish was a part
Okehampton Rural, Devon, Englandrural district in which the parish was located 1894-1974
West Devon District, Devon, Englanddistrict municipality covering the area since 1974
the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Drewsteignton (#9 on map) is a civil parish and village of the same name within the administrative area of West Devon District, also lying within the Dartmoor National Park. It is located in the Teign valley, 13 miles (21 km) west of Exeter and 9 miles (14 km) southeast of Okehampton. It is known for its attractive scenery, for its picturesque village centre, and for the nearby attractions of Castle Drogo and the beauty spot of Fingle Bridge. The population of the ward at the 2011 UK census was 1,616.

The manor of Taintone (meaning in Anglo-Saxon "a settlement beside the (River) Teign") is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as the 107th of the 176 Devon landholdings of Baldwin the Sheriff, otherwise known as Baldwin FitzGilbert and Baldwin de Meulles who held it in demesne. He was William the Conqueror's Sheriff of Devon and held lands granted to him personally by that king in Devon which comprised the feudal barony of Okehampton, including Taintone. In the reign of King Henry II (1154-1189) it was held by a certain "Drew", also known in Anglo-Norman French as Drew de Teignton, Latinized to "Drogo", from whom the manor derived its distinguishing suffix. However, by 1242 it had passed from the Drew family and was held by the Daubernon (or Dabernon) family. Later it passed to the Carew family of Antony in Cornwall and at some time before 1810 was sold-off piecemeal by Reginald Pole-Carew (d.1835).

Image:Okehampton RD small.png

In mediaeval times, the village was relatively prosperous. It was important as a wool producing area, and there were also limestone quarries and a small tin mine. The village was a stopping place on the old road from Exeter to Okehampton. Much of the village building is of granite, as is Fingle Bridge, over the Teign, which was built in the 16th or 17th century. Historically the village formed part of Wonford Hundred.

The parish church of Holy Trinity dates mostly from the 15th century, with some later rebuilding. The village square adjoining the church may date from the original formation of the settlement. Census information indicates that Drewsteignton underwent prolonged depopulation through the 19th century, and many of its buildings have remained largely unchanged since then.

The nearby but now disused quarry was worked extensively in the 18th and into the 19th century. Limestone was extracted for road-building as well as construction. A number of workers were employed and seven cottages, bakery and blacksmith's workshop made up Wynbeam Cross and Kiln Village to the south of the workings. Various original lime kilns are in a degraded state but remain visible on site. Limestone extraction ended in 1906-9, and one of the two main pits was filled with water. Further commercial activity at the site took place in the later 20th century, finally ending in 1991.

From 1894 until 1974 Drewsteignton was a parish in the Okehampton Rural District and since 1974 local administration is dealt with by the West Devon District.

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 Drewsteignton. 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.