Place:Plympton St. Mary Rural, Devon, England

Watchers
NamePlympton St. Mary Rural
TypeRural district
Coordinates50.39°N 4.06°W
Located inDevon, England     (1894 - 1974)
See alsoPlymouth, Devon, Englandcounty borough into which parts of the rural district were amalgamated at varying dates from 1898 onward to 1967
Plymouth Unitary Authority, Devon, Englandunitary authority which absorbed the last tranche of western side of the rural district as it was formed
South Hams District, Devon, Englanddistrict municipality into which the remainder of the rural district was merged in 1974
Plympton St. Mary Rural District was in existence between 1894 and 1974 and was located to the north, east and southeast of the City of Plymouth in Devon. As might be expected of a rural administration in such a location, it lost numerous acres to the larger municipality during the period of its existence. The changes that occurred in a number of the parishes have not always been documented in full in the usual sources.

The rural district was abolished in 1974 and its parishes still in existence at that time were absorbed into the South Hams District within the County of Devon. Several parishes had been amalgamated into the independently controlled City of Plymouth in 1967.

While the Rural District was always named Plympton St. Mary, the name of the Registration District for the parishes in the area was changed from Plympton St. Mary to Plympton in 1936.

A map provided by the former Online Parish Clerk includes a few more parishes than those which were part of the Plympton St. Mary Rural District.

Image:Plympton St. Mary RD 1931 1944.png

Parishes

No. on MapParishDescriptionDurationNotes
1 Bickleigh (near Plymouth) ancient parish, civil parish 1894-1974 part absorbed into Plymouth in 1951
2Brixton chapelry, civil parish 1894-1974
3 Compton Gifford chapelry, civil parish 1896-1939 absorbed into Plymouth in 1939
4 Cornwood ancient parish, civil parish 1894-1974
5 Egg Buckland ancient parish, civil parish 1894-1974 reduced to enlarge Plymouth parish 1939
6 Ermington ancient parish, civil parish 1894-1974
7 Harford ancient parish, civil parish 1894-1974
8 Holbeton ancient parish, civil parish 1894-1974
9 Ivybridge extra parochial area, civil parish 1935-1974 formerly urban district
10 Laira Green extra parochial area, civil parish 1894-1974 reduced to enlarge Plymstock parish 1896
11 Newton and Noss civil parish 1935-1974 formed in 1935 from Newton Ferrers and Revelstoke parishes
12 Newton Ferrers ancient parish, civil parish 1894-1935 became part of Newton and Noss in 1935
13 Pennycross chapelry, civil parish 1894-1974 replaced by Weston Peverell in 1898
14 Plympton St. Mary ancient parish, civil parish 1894-1967 absorbed by Plymouth in 1967
15 Plympton St. Maurice ancient parish, civil parish 1894-1967 absorbed by Plymouth in 1967
16 Plymstock ancient parish, civil parish 1894-1974 reduced to enlarge Plymouth parish 1939, remainder absorbed by Plymouth in 1967
17 Revelstoke chapelry, civil parish 1894-1935 became part of Newton and Noss in 1935
18 Shaugh Prior chapelry, civil parish 1894-1974
19 Sparkwell chapelry, civil parish 1894-1974 absorbed into Plympton St. Mary
20 St. Budeaux chapelry, civil parish 1894-1951 reduced to enlarge Plymouth parish 1939, remainder absorbed by Plymouth in 1951
21 Tamerton Foliot ancient parish, civil parish 1894-1951 reduced to enlarge Plymouth parish 1939, remainder absorbed by Plymouth in 1951
22 Wembury ancient parish, civil parish 1894-1974
23 Weston Peverell civil parish 1899-1935 replaced Pennycross in 1899, amalgamated into Plymouth 1935
24 Yealmpton ancient parish, civil parish 1894-1974

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.)