Place:Moreton Hampstead, Devon, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Moreton Hampstead (#22 on map) (also known as Moretonhampstead) is a market town, civil parish and former manor in Devon, situated on the northeastern edge of Dartmoor, within the Dartmoor National Park. The parish now includes the hamlet of Doccombe, and it is surrounded by the parishes of Bovey Tracey (#5), Lustleigh (#20), North Bovey (#23) as well as Drewsteignton, Dunsford, Bridford, Chagford in South Molton Rural District. At the 2011 UK census the population of the parish was 1,703. The parish church is dedicated to St. Andrew. From 1894 until 1974 Moreton Hampstead was in the Newton Abbot Rural District and since 1974 local administration is dealt with by the Teignbridge District. [edit] History The present parish of over 6,000 acres (24 km2) is the residue an ancient royal estate that can be traced back to beyond the Norman Conquest. In the Domesday Book of 1086, it is listed as the 45th of the 72 Devonshire holdings of King William the Conqueror. The manor was held by grand serjeanty from the king by Richard de Burgh, 2nd Earl of Ulster (1259–1326) during the reign of King Edward I (1272–1307), for the annual yielding of one sparrow hawk.

After that time it was the seat of Sir Philip de Courtenay (killed at Stirling 1314), second son of Sir Hugh de Courtenay (died 1292), feudal baron of Okehampton, by his wife Eleanor le Despenser (died 1328) (sister of Hugh le Despenser, 1st Earl of Winchester), and younger brother of Hugh de Courtenay, 1st/9th Earl of Devon (1276–1340) of Tiverton Castle. When he died childless Moreton Hampstead was inherited by his elder brother, the Earl of Devon, who gave Moreton Hampstead to his third son Robert de Courtenay, who made it his seat. Robert's grandson, William de Courtenay (1377–1388) died childless, and eventually the manor became the property of Sir Philip Courtenay (1340–1406) of Powderham, 5th or 6th son of Hugh Courtenay, 2nd Earl of Devon (1303–1377). Thenceforth it descended with the Powderham estate and, in the time of William Pole, the antiquary (died 1635), belonged to Francis Courtenay (1576–1638), de jure 4th Earl of Devon.

Wool and (in later years) the manufacture of woollen cloth formed the basis of the town's economy for over 700 years. The economy was evidently healthy when Moreton Hampstead established a water-powered fulling mill before the end of the 13th century.

In 1207 King John granted a weekly market and an annual five-day fair, indicating that Moretonhampstead had developed into an important local community. The town grew steadily through the Middle Ages and remained prosperous until the end of the 17th century, when the wool industry began to decline. The town continued to be a local trading centre and a rest stop for travellers on the difficult routes across Dartmoor and from Exeter and Newton Abbot.

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.)
• Moretonhampstead History Society a great resource for family history and historical data. Includes parish registers, school registers, census search, directories 1793-1898, maps and newspaper cuttings.