Place:Okehampton, Devon, England

Watchers
NameOkehampton
Alt namesOakhamptonsource: Family History Library Catalog
Ochementonesource: Domesday Book (1985) p 84
Ochenemitonasource: Domesday Book (1985) p 84
TypeAncient parish, Civil parish, Borough (municipal)
Coordinates50.739°N 4.004°W
Located inDevon, England     (500 - )
See alsoBlack Torrington Hundred, Devon, Englandhundred in which the borough was part located
Lifton Hundred, Devon, Englandhundred in which the borough was part located
West Devon District, Devon, Englandmodern district into which the borough was transferred in 1974
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog
the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Okehampton is a town and civil parish in the non-metropolitan West Devon District of the English county of Devon. It is situated at the northern edge of Dartmoor, and has an estimated population of 5,700. It was a municipal borough from 1885 until 1974 when municipal boroughs were replaced on the introduction of non-metropolitan districts.

Okehampton was founded by the Saxons. The earliest written record of the settlement is from 980 AD as "Ocmundtune", meaning settlement by the Ockment, a river which runs through the town. It was recorded as a place for slaves to be freed at cross roads in the mediavel era.

Like many towns in the West Country, Okehampton grew on the medieval wool trade. Notable buildings in the town include the 15th century chapel of St. James and Okehampton Castle, which was established by the Norman Sheriff of Devon, Baldwin FitzGilbert (d.1090).

Okehampton was the caput of a large feudal barony, which at the time of the Domesday Book was held by Baldwin FitzGilbert. After his death in 1090 the tenure of the barony is obscure until about 1153. For the next twenty years it was held by the heiress Maud d'Avranches until her death in 1173, when it passed to her daughter, Hawise de Curci (died 1219), who married Reginald de Courtenay. His French possessions were confiscated by the French King Louis VII, but were given, together with the marriage of his daughter Elizabeth de Courtenay, to the king's youngest brother who became known as Peter I of Courtenay. The Courtenay family rebuilt Okehampton Castle, but King Henry VIII seized the lands and had Henry Courtenay, 1st Marquess of Exeter executed for treason in 1539.

Okehampton was a rotten borough until 1832. This meant that despite its small size it was allowed to elect two members to the House of Commons. The Reform Act of 1832 abolished this representation and since then it has been part of a parliamentary constituency or electoral district whose electors are balanced in numbers with every other constituency in the country.

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 Okehampton. 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.