Place:Berry Pomeroy, Devon, England

Watchers
NameBerry Pomeroy
Alt namesBerisource: Domesday Book (1985) p 77
Beriesource: Domesday Book (1985) p 77
Berry-Pomeroysource: Family History Library Catalog
Aftonsource: estate in parish
TypeAncient parish, Civil parish
Coordinates50.433°N 3.65°W
Located inDevon, England
See alsoHaytor Hundred, Devon, Englandhundred in which the parish was located
Totnes Rural, Devon, Englandrural district 1894-1974
South Hams District, Devon, Englanddistrict municipality in which it has been located since 1974
Contained Places
Castle
Berry Pomeroy Castle
the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Berry Pomeroy (#2 on map) is a village, civil parish and former manor in the former Haytor Hundred, today within the District of South Hams of Devon, about two miles east of Totnes. From 1894 until 1974 it was part of the Totnes Rural District.

Berry Pomeroy was the caput of a large feudal barony whose holder is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Ralph de Pomeroy, who held in total within Devon 54 manors, three smaller parcels of land and six houses in Exeter. It was one of only eight feudal baronies in Devon. The family retained the barony until 1547.

Berry Pomeroy Castle, about one mile northeast of the village, was built as the home of the de la Pomeray family in the late 15th century. On 1 December 1547 Sir Thomas Pomeroy (d.1566) sold the castle, park and manor of Berry Pomeroy, with other lands, to Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset. The duke gave it to his eldest son from his first marriage, Sir Edward Seymour, henceforth known as "of Berry Pomeroy" to distinguish him from the duke's other three sons also named Edward. The duke's second wife later persuaded him to exclude by entail the children of his first marriage from inheriting his main estates. However, on the expiry of the line of descent from this second marriage, the Berry Pomeroy line inherited the Dukedom of Somerset, in the person of Edward Seymour, 8th Duke of Somerset (1694-1757). The Castle was abandoned by the Seymour family in the late 17th century and was later considered a 'romantic ruin' by the Victorians. It is still owned by the Duke of Somerset, but is now maintained by English Heritage.

Ralph de Feugeres was a Norman knight and landowner who was a tenant-in-chief of estates in Devon after the Norman Conquest in 1066. His lands included the places now known as Adworthy and Afton.

Image:Totnes RD 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.)
  • 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 Berry Pomeroy. 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.