Place:Modbury, Devon, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Modbury (#13 on map) is a large village, ecclesiastical or ancient parish, civil parish and former manor situated in the South Hams District of the county of Devon in England. The village is situated on the A379 road, which links it to Plymouth and Kingsbridge. Today, due to its large size (population approximately 1,500), it is generally referred to as a "town" although the parish council has not elected to give itself the status of a town as it could do under s.245(6) of the Local Government Act 1972, so it does not have a town council and cannot have a town mayor. It is also known informally as a "market town", as from at least 1199 the lord of the manor has held the right to hold a regular market. [edit] History Modbury is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086. The population of the town was greatly reduced as a consequence of the Black Death in the 14th century. Modbury was the site of two battles during the English Civil War (1642–1651). For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Modbury.

By 1801, the population of Modbury had risen to 1,813, with almost half engaged in the wool trade. But by the mid-1820s onward the impact of the mechanisation of the wool industry had a dramatic effect on the economic prosperity and population of the town. Many workers left the town and headed to large cities in search of employment; others left the country altogether, emigrating to America.

The railway line bypassed Modbury, contributing still further to this decline. Modbury remained an important market town until as late as 1944 when the cattle market ceased.

Manor

The manor of Modbury was held from the time of the Domesday Book by the Vautort family, and passed successively to the families of Okeston and Champernowne (sometimes Champernon). In the Domesday Book the manor is listed as two separate parts; the principal one, Motbilie, was one of the holdings of Robert, Count of Mortain, half-brother of William the Conqueror. Robert's tenant was one of his important Anglo-Norman followers, Reginald I de Vautort.

Later, Sir Roger de Vautort granted the manor, together with Bridford, to Sir Alexander de Okeston, of Okeston (alias Oxton), the second husband of Joan de Vautort, widow of Ralph de Vautort, Sir Roger's elder brother. Joan de Vautort was the mistress of Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall (1209–1272), second son of King John. By Okeston she had a son, Sir James Okeston, who before he died childless named as his heir the son of his half-sister Joan, daughter of Earl Richard and wife of Richard Champernowne of Clyst Champernowne, near Exeter, Devon. The Champernown family was thenceforth seated at Modbury. Sir James Okeston (son of Sir Alexander de Okeston) granted Bridford to Richard Champernowne, as evidenced in a deed dated 1314.

The manor house, last occupied by the Champernowne family and known as "Court House", was situated on the north side of the parish church of St. George, on or near the site of Modbury Priory, founded in the 12th century by the Vautort lords of the manor. It was destroyed during the Civil War (1642–1651) and the remnants were sold for building materials in 1705.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Modbury. Includes a description of the parish church and short notes on the estates of Little Modbury (the le Rouse (or le Rous) family, Orcheton (the Prideaux family), Shilstone (the Hill family and the Savery family), Wympston (the Fortescue family), and Yarmacombe (the Hart family).

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.)
• South Hams, Devon, A Genealogical Information Resource A collection of transcriptions of church registers and the 1841 census, plus a free lookup service in registers and other materials that have not been transcribed, for the South Hams District of Devon, England. The website states that its latest transcription was added 10 Nov 2018.