Place:Langtree, Devon, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Langtree (#11 on map) is a civil parish with a village of the same name in north Devon, England, situated about 4 miles southwest of Great Torrington and 8 miles south of Bideford. Its name means "tall tree". The council of the Torridge District and Devon County Council are responsible for local government, while for religious administrative purposes it is part of the Archdeaconry of Barnstaple and the Diocese of Exeter. Langtree's parish church is dedicated to All Saints and is a 13th century building. It also has an independent chapel. The parish also includes the smaller village of Stibb Cross. An entry in White's History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Devonshire (1850) reads: "LANGTREE is a considerable village, 3½ miles S.W. of Great Torrington, and has in its parish 911 souls, and 4,028 acres of land, including the hamlets of Stowford and Week. The Trustees of the late Lord Rolle own most of the soil, and are lords of the manors of Langtree and Stowford, and patrons of the rectory ... The Church has a tower and five bells, and contains several neat monuments. There was anciently a chapel at Cross Hill. The National School, built in 1840, is supported by the rector."

The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868) adds:

"The village, which is considerable, is wholly agricultural. The soil is clayey, but in some parts rich, producing good crops of wheat and barley. The prevailing timber is oak and pine. The road from Torrington to Holsworthy and Launceston, Cornwall, passes through the parish. The tithes have been commuted for a rent-charge of £510. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Exeter, value £348. The church, dedication unknown, is an ancient stone structure, with a tower containing five bells. There was formerly a chapel of ease at Cross-Hill. The parochial charities produce about £55 per annum. There is a parochial school for both sexes, in which a Sunday-school is also held. The Baptists and Bible Christians have each a chapel. The trustees of the late Lord Rolle are lords of the manor."

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.)