Place:Charleton, Devon, England

Watchers
NameCharleton
Alt namesEast Charletonsource: settlement in parish
West Charletonsource: largest settlement in parish
Govetonsource: hamlet in parish
Lidstonesource: hamlet in parish
TypeAncient parish, Civil parish
Coordinates50.27°N 3.742°W
Located inDevon, England
See alsoColeridge Hundred, Devon, Englandhundred in which it was situated
Kingsbridge Rural, Devon, Englandrural district 1894-1974
South Hams District, Devon, Englanddistrict municipality covering the area since 1974
the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Charleton (#5 on map) is a civil parish in the English county of Devon. In 2001 its population was 511. At the 2011 census the population was expressed as part of the Saltstone ward which had a population of 1,529. The parish is in the South Hams District.

end of Wikipedia contribution

Charleton is located across the Kingsbridge Estuary from Kingsbridge itself. It has two main settlements: East Charleton (a hamlet) and West Charleton, the larger settlement which contains the parish church of St Mary's. Wilson's Gazetteer also mentions the hamlets of Goveton and Lidstone.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Charleton from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1871-72:

"CHARLETON, a village and a parish in Kingsbridge district, Devon. The village stands on a sea-creek, 2 miles SSE of Kingsbridge, and 11 S by E of Kingsbridge Road r. station; and is a straggling place, in two parts, called East and West. The parish includes also the hamlets of Goveton, Lidstone, and part of Frogmore. Post Town: Kingsbridge. Acres: 2,779; of which 400 are water. Real property, with Sherford: £7,451. Population: 568. Houses: 127. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Exeter. Value: £522. Patron: Mrs. J. Twysden. The church is ancient; consists of nave, chancel, and aisles, with a tower; and has an ancient carved screen."

NOTE: The hamlet of Frogmore is situated on the boundary between the parishes of Charleton, Sherford and South Pool. At some time in the 20th or 21st century it was taken into Sherford and that parish is now called Sherford and Frogmore. For this reason it has been redirected and is discussed under that parish.

Image:Kingsbridge RD small A.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.)
  • South Hams, Devon, A Genealogical Information Resource A collection of transcriptions of church registers and the 1841 census, plus a free lookup service in registers and other materials that have not been transcribed, for the South Hams District of Devon, England. The website states that its latest transcription was added 10 Nov 2018.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Charleton. 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.