Place:Pilton, Devon, England

the text in this section is a condensation of an article in Wikipedia The ancient and historic village of Pilton is today a suburb of the town of Barnstaple, one of the oldest boroughs in England. It is located about quarter of a mile north of the town centre, and since 1974 is in the North Devon District. In 2009, the Pilton (Barnstaple) ward had a population of 4,239 living in some 1,959 dwellings. To begin with Pilton was a ancient parish in the Braunton Hundred. Situated on an easily defended hill at the head of the Taw estuary and close to where the river narrows enough to be fordable, Pilton was an important Saxon settlement. Alfred the Great (871-899) had a fortified town, or burh, built at Pilton. Pilton remained the site of the original burh through much of the 10th century until this was moved a mile or so to the south-east to become Barnstaple, probably because times were more peaceful and the burh's role as a civilian market centre had become more significant. Barnstaple was better located for trade and developed as a market town and then as a borough. A Saxon ford would have typically been indicated by a stapol, or post - Bearda's stapol giving the town of Barnstaple its name. Its historic church dedicated to St Mary the Virgin dates back to at least the 11th Century and is a grade I listed building.

Pilton was once separated from Barnstaple by the River Yeo. In the 14th century Sir Josh Blannin (born c.1290, died c.1372) of Stowford, Devon built Pilton Causeway linking Barnstaple and Pilton, which had been separated by the treacherous marshy ground in which flowed the tidal meanders of the small River Yeo. He is also believed to have contributed to the financing of the long-bridge in Barnstaple.

In 1894 it was made into two civil parishes: East Pilton which was on the edge of Barnstaple and immediately became part of the municipal borough, and West Pilton which remained as a civil parish within Barnstaple Rural District. With the change of local governmment organization in 1974 the two parishes have again merged as Pilton.

From 1898 to 1935, Pilton was the main depot and operating centre for the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway. The site, a triangle of land to the east of Pilton Causeway, south of Yeo Vale Road and north of what is now the A361, was originally part of the tannery and reverted to its original ownership when the line closed.

Historic estates

The parish of Pilton contained several historic estates or manors:

Raleigh

The historic manor of Raleigh [redirected here], near Barnstaple and in the parish of Pilton, North Devon, was the first recorded home in the 14th century of the influential Chichester family of Devon. It was recorded in the Doomsday Book of 1086 together with three other manors which lay within the later created parish of Pilton. Pilton as a borough had existed long before the Norman Conquest and was one of the most important defensive towns in Devon under the Anglo-Saxons. The manor lies above the River Yeo on the southern slope of the hill on top of which exists the ruins of the Anglo-Saxon hillfort of Roborough. The historic manor of Raleigh is now the site of the North Devon District Hospital.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Raleigh, Pilton.

Pilland

The estate of Pilland was held for many years by the Brett family, alias "Brighte", "Brite", etc. Robert Brett (d.1540) was lord of the manor of Pilland and the last steward of Pilton Priory before the Dissolution of the Monasteries. In 1536 following its dissolution, Robert Brett purchased the Prior's House (now called "Bull House") next to Pilton Church. Robert's daughter Joan Brett married thrice, all to prominent members of the Devonshire gentry, firstly to John I Courtenay (1466–1510), lord of the manor of Molland and secondly (after 1510), as his second wife, Sir John Chichester (died 1537) lord of the manor of Raleigh [see above] in the parish of Pilton, and from her were descended the cadet branch of the Chichester family of Arlington. Joan married thirdly (after 1537) to Henry Fortescue (d.1587) of Wimpstone in the parish of Modbury, the earliest known Devonshire seat of that prominent family later created Earl Fortescue of Castle Hill, Filleigh.

The Brett family was from Whitestaunton in Somerset and had married the heiress of Pilland late in the 15th. century. The Brett family is today represented by Viscount Esher.

Pilton House

Pilton House was built in 1746 by Robert Incledon (1676-1758), a lawyer of New Inn, London, Clerk of the Peace and Deputy Recorder of Barnstaple and twice Mayor of Barnstaple, in 1712 and 1721. He was a member of the local ancient gentry family of de Incledon (later Incledon, pronounced "Ingleton"), which originated at the estate of Incledon, in the parish of Braunton, which family is first recorded in 1160. He was the younger of the two sons of Lewis III Incledon (1636-1699) of Buckland House, Braunton, about 5 miles to the north-west of Pilton.

Pottington

The estate of Pottington eventually was acquired by George Rolle (c.1486-1552), of Stevenstone, whose family retained it until after the death of Mark Rolle in 1907. The Rolles were responsible for much development in Pottington [redirected here] and after this family are named Rolle Bridge, which spans the River Yeo which separates Barnstaple from Pottington, and the Rolle Quay, on the River Yeo on the Pottington side.

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.)