Place:Alphington (by Exeter), Devon, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

:the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Alphington (by Exeter) (#1 on map) is a former manor and village, and also a civil parish, which is now a suburb of the City of Exeter in Devon, England. The (post-1974) ward of Alphington in the Exeter District has a population of 8,250 according to the 2001 UK census, making it the third largest in Exeter, with the village itself accounting for about a quarter of this figure. The ward population increased to 8,682 at the 2011 UK census. It is surrounded on two sides by countryside, with the Marsh Barton trading estate to the east and Exeter City to the north. The Alphin Brook passes around the northern edge of Alphington. Charles Babbage (1791–1871), the "father of computing", was educated in Alphington. A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Alphington from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1871-72: "ALPHINGTON, a village, a parish, and a [registration] subdistrict, in the [registration] district of St. Thomas, Devon. The village stands near the South Devon railway and the river Exe, 1¾ mile S of Exeter; and has a post office under Exeter, and fairs on the Wednesday after 20 June and after 29 Sept. It was one of the headquarters of Fairfax's army, in 1646, at the blockading of Exeter. "The parish comprises 2,471 acres. Real property: £8,598. Population: 1,250 Houses: 270. The property is divided among a few. The manor was acquired, in the reign of Richard II., by the family of the Earl of Devon; and the greater part of it continues still in their possession. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Exeter. Value: £987. Patron: the Rev. F. A. Savile. The church contains a Norman font with interlaced arches, scroll ornaments, and grotesque figures over the arches; has a red turretted tower in perpendicular English; and, excepting the south wall, is in good condition. Charities £29, and some poors' cottages."

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.

• the Devon Heritage Centre at Exeter
• the Northern Record Office at Barnstaple
• the Plymouth and West Devon Record Office at Plymouth which is independent of the other two.

• 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.

• The FamilySearch Wiki provides a similar information service to GENUKI. An index of parishes leads to notes and references for each parish.

• Brett Langston's list of Devon Registration Districts and parishes within each registration district from 1837 to the present can indicate where to find details of civil registration entries since the process began in England.

• 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.)