Place:Lifton, Devon, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Lifton (#11 on map) is a civil parish and village of the same name in Devon, England near the confluence of the rivers Wolf and Lyd, 1¼ miles south of the A30 major road and very near the border between Devon and Cornwall. The village is part of the West Devon District electoral ward of "Thrushel". The population of the surrounding Thrushel ward (which includes the village of Thrushelton to the east of Lifton) at the 2011 UK census was 1,680. [edit] History the text in this section is a condensation of an article in Wikipedia The village was one of the first in the west of Devon to be founded by the Saxons, and was of strategic importance because of its location on a major route close to the border with Cornwall. Lifton became the centre of an administrative hundred, and was a royal manor, passing into private hands when sold by Queen Elizabeth I to local landowner William Harris of Hayne in the parish of Stowford, Devon, in the late 16th century. A former inn at Portgate, the Harris Arms, named after the family, is now a private residence.

There has been a church in Lifton since Norman times, although little of the existing St Mary's Church is earlier than the 15th century. In 1755 the manor was inherited by the Arundell family.

Agriculture and mining have supported the economy in the past. The dairy company, Ambrosia, has been based here since 1917. Started as a milk factory using supplies from dairy farms in the area, it produced dried milk during the Second World War. The site has been enlarged considerably and the firm is now an important local employer processing dairy and dessert products.

Lifton railway station on the South Devon and Tavistock Railway opened on 1 June 1865. The main building was on the platform used by trains towards Plymouth but there was a loop and second platform to allow trains to pass. There was a level crossing at the west end of the station.

The goods yard was on the same side as the buildings but a private siding was opened in 1894 to serve a corn mill, and a factory was opened in the goods yard in 1917 that handled milk, and later made "Ambrosia" rice pudding. Passenger trains and public goods traffic ceased on 31 December 1962 but the line to Lydford was retained to carry the trains from the milk factory. This too was closed on 28 February 1966.

Historic estates

Lifton Park

A country house called Lifton Park was built by William Arundel in 1805 and was the centre of the Lifton estate. Frederick Stockdale said of the house "very delightfully situated and commands an interesting prospect of the town of Launceston with its ancient castle, indeed no expense seems to have been spared to render the surrounding plantations containing about 8,000 acres."

Shortly after World War 2 the house was severely damaged by fire. The west wing has since been restored, but most of the former house still stands in ruins. Part of the park is an arboretum. The two entrances to the park each still have lodges dating from the Victorian era.

Wortham

The manor of Wortham, in the parish of Lifton, was long a seat of the Dynham family, a junior branch descended from the Anglo-Norman magnate Baron Dynham. The early 16th century manor house survives, today the property of the Landmark Trust. (See also Wikipedia on Wortham manor.)

Gatherleigh

Gatherleigh in the parish of Lifton was the seat of the Hunkin family, of whom prominent members were Joseph Hunkin (1610-1661) Governor of the Scilly Isles between 1651 and 1660, and Joseph Hunkin (1887-1950), born in Truro, Cornwall, the 8th Bishop of Truro from 1935 to 1950.

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.)