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| From 1894 until 1974 Hatherleigh (#13 on map) was a civil parish in the Okehampton Rural District and since 1974 local administration is dealt with by the West Devon District. Hatherleigh is a small market town in west Devon, England. The civil parish population at the 2011 UK census was just over 2,200.
A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Hatherleigh from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:
- "HATHERLEIGH, a small town, a parish, and a [registration] subdistrict, in Okehampton [registration] district, Devon. The town stands on the rivulet Lew, near its inflnx to the Torridge, 8 miles WNW of North Tawton [railway] station, and 16 SE of Bideford; will have a station on the branch of the Devon. and Cornwall railway to Bude and Torrington; is a nominal borough, governed by a portreeve and other officers; is also a seat of petty sessions, and a polling place; and has a head post office, designated Hatherleigh, North Devon, a good inn, a market house, public rooms, a newly erected police station, a church, two dissenting chapels, a national school, and charities £15. The markethouse was built in 1840, to serve for a revived market which had been defunct for more than 50 years. The public rooms were built in 1821; and serve for benefit societies, for reading rooms, and for lectures. The church is later English, and good; and consists of nave, chancel, and aisles, with tower and spire. A weekly market is held on Tuesday; and fairs are held on 21 May, 22 June, 4 Sept., and 8 Nov. A woollen manufacture was formerly carried on, but is extinct; and the chief industry now is in brick and tile making, stone quarrying, and farm labour. Jasper Mayne, the preacher and dramatic writer, was a native.
- "The parish comprises 7,048 acres. Real property: £5,256. Population: 1,645. Houses: 323. The property is much subdivided. The manor belonged formerly to Tavistock abbey; and belongs now to J. L. Oldham, Esq. There are several good residences. A moor in the parish commands a magnificest panoramic view, and has a monument to Col. Morris, who figured in the memorable charge at Balaklava. A tract of about 430 acres of the moor was given to the town by the abbots of Tavistock. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Exeter. Value: £202. Patron: the Trustees of the late J. Ireland, Esq."
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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.
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- 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.
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- 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.)
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