Place:Meavy, Devon, England

Watchers
NameMeavy
Alt namesMewisource: Domesday Book (1985) p 84
TypeAncient parish, Civil parish
Coordinates50.483°N 4.05°W
Located inDevon, England
See alsoRoborough Hundred, Devon, Englandhundred of which the parish was a part
Tavistock Rural, Devon, Englandrural district 1894-1974
West Devon District, Devon, Englanddistrict municipality covering the area since 1974
the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Meavy (#15 on map) is a civil parish and a small village of the same name and also a former manor in the English county of Devon. Meavy forms part of the District of West Devon. The parish of Buckland Monachorum (#4) is situated to the west. The River Meavy runs near the village.

For administrative purposes since 1974 the parish has been grouped with the parishes of Sheepstor (#19) and Walkhampton (#25) to form Burrator Parish Council, and for electoral purposes it is grouped with the same two parishes to form Burrator Ward in the West Devon District Council. The parish had a population of 642 in the UK census of 2011, and the ward had 1,445.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Meavy from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1871-72:

"MEAVY, a village and a parish in Tavistock [registration] district, Devon. The village stands on the river Meavy, near Sheepstor hill, 2½ miles SE of Horrabridge [railway] station, and 6 SE by S of Tavistock; is surrounded by romantic scenery; has a post office under Horrabridge, Devon, and an inn; and is a resort of anglers.
"The parish contains also the village of Loveton. Acres: 3,289. Real property: £2,047; of which £75 are in quarries. Population: 269. Houses: 49. The property is divided among a few. The manor and much of the land belong to Sir M. Lopes, Bart. Remains exist of an old mansion, which was the residence of Sir Francis Drake. Sheepstor hill, a great mass of sparkling granite, figures conspicuously in the landscape, and contrasts strikingly to neighbouring woods and verdure. An oak, supposed to be as old as the time of King John, stands at the village; measures 27 feet in girth; and is so decayed and worn in the trunk as to form an archway nearly 6 feet high. A bridge spans the Meavy; and a well preserved ancient granite cross, about 9 feet high, is in its neighbourhood. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Exeter. Value: £210. Patron: the Lord Chancellor. The church is early English; was recently restored; and consists of nave, [south] aisle, transept, and chancel, with porch and tower. There are a Baptist chapel and a parochial school."
Image:Tavistock 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.)
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Meavy. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.