Place:Milton Abbot, Devon, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Milton Abbot (#16 on map) is a civil parish with a village of the same name in Devon, 6 miles (9.7 km) northwest of Tavistock, and 6 miles (9.7 km) southeast of Launceston, Cornwall.

The manor of Middeltone (eventually Milton Abbot) was donated at some time before the Norman Conquest of 1066 (according to the Devon historian Risdon (d. 1640) by "a knight that dwelt in Daversweek") to Tavistock Abbey, as is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, and, together with most of the Abbey's other extensive possessions, was acquired following the Dissolution of the Monasteries (circa 1539) by John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford (c.1485-1554/5), of Chenies in Buckinghamshire and of Bedford House in Exeter, Devon, who was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Devon by King Henry VIII. In 1810 the manor was owned by his descendant John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford (1766–1839).

The following description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 is provided by the website A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography). "MILTON-ABBOT, a village, a parish, and a [registration] subdistrict, in Tavistock [registration] district, Devon. The village stands 1½ mile E of the river Tamar, at the boundary with Cornwall, and 6¼ NW of Tavistock [railway] station; is a pleasant place; and has a post office under Tavistock, and a fair on the Wednesday after 20 July. "The parish contains also the hamlets of Chillaton, Edgcumbe, Foghanger, and Quither. Acres: 6,617. Real property: £8,540; of which £10 are in quarries. Population in 1851: 1,242; in 1861: 1,062. Houses: 220. "The property is divided among a few. The manor belonged to Tavistock abbey; went, at the dissolution, to Lord Russell; and belongs now to the Duke of Bedford. Endsleigh is a villa-seat of the Duke of Bedford; stands amid romantic scenery on the river Tamar; was built in 1810, after designs by Sir G. Wyattville; presents an aspect of remarkable but picturesque irregularity; and has grounds with features of striking interest, including the Dairy dell, the Alpine garden with a Swiss cottage, and the Terrace commanding a very beautiful view. "The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Exeter. Value: £557. Patron: the Duke of Bedford. The church is later English, and has a pinnacled tower. There are chapels for Wesleyans and Bible Christians, a boys' free school, a girls' free school, and charities £6."

Historic estates

Endsleigh

In the parish is Endsleigh Cottage, built between 1810 and 1816 by John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford of Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire, as a private family residence, to the designs of Sir Jeffry Wyatville, in the style of the picturesque movement, a grand form of the cottage orné, now a hotel.

Edgcumbe

The estate of Edgcumbe within the parish was the original English seat of the Edgcumbe family (originally 'de Edgecombe'), recorded there in 1292. William Edgcombe (d. 1380) married the heiress of Cotehele in the parish of Calstock in Cornwall, to which manor he moved his residence. Sir Richard Edgcumbe (d.1562) built Mount Edgcumbe House in Cornwall and moved there from Cothele. His descendant was Richard Edgcumbe, 1st Baron Edgcumbe (1680–1758), whose second son was George Edgcumbe, 1st Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, 3rd Baron Edgcumbe (1720-1795). The earldom survives today, in a direct male line.

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.)