Place:High Bray, Devon, England

Watchers
NameHigh Bray
Alt namesBraisource: Domesday Book (1985) p 82
Braiasource: Domesday Book (1985) p 82
Highbraysource: Family History Library Catalog
TypeAncient parish, Civil parish
Coordinates51.083°N 3.85°W
Located inDevon, England
See alsoShirwell Hundred, Devon, Englandhundred in which High Bray was located
Barnstaple Rural, Devon, Englandrural district in which the parish was located 1894-1974
North Devon District, Devon, Englanddistrict municipality covering the area since 1974

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of High Bray (#18 on map) from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"HIGHBRAY, a parish in Barnstaple [registration] district, Devon; on the river Bray, near the boundary with Somerset, 6½ miles NNW of South Molton, and 9½ E by N of Barnstaple [railway] station. Post town, North Molton, under South Molton. Acres: 4,273. Real property: £3,505. Population: 295. Houses: 48. The property is divided among a few. Lydcott, the house whence Amy Robsart of Sir Walter Scott's novel of Kenilworth went, is now partly removed and partly a farm house; and the ancient chapel of it is now the farm garden; and a shilling of Queen Elizabeth was, a few years ago, found there. The surface of the parish is high, and partly moorish. An ancient fortification of about 4 acres, a tumulus 114 feet in circuit and 10 feet high, and several smaller tumuli, are on the moor. Successive strata in the tumuli have been found, on examination, to contain, -first, ashes, Roman coins, and cinerary urns; next, Greek coins; next, Egyptian coins, Phœnician coins, and copper arrow heads. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Exeter. Value: £280. Patron: P. P. Acland, Esq. The church is very ancient; has a peculiar tower; and contains a fine ancient font, and several very old monumental stones."

From 1894 until 1974 High Bray was in the Barnstaple Rural District and since 1974 in the North Devon District.

There is no description in Wikipedia

Registration Districts

Image:Barnstaple 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.)