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- the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia
Torbryan (#27 on map) is a village near Ipplepen in Devon, England. To the northwest it stretches up into Dartmoor. The current parish is named "Denbury and Torbryan" and it is part of the Teignbridge District.
In the Domesday Book of 1086 it was listed as "Torre Braine" and also in 1238. The de Brian family were Lords of the manor for 250 years.
A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Torbryan from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1871-72:
- "TORBRIAN, a parish in Newton-Abbot [registration] district, Devon; near the South Devon railway, 4 miles SSW of Newton-Abbot. Post town, Newton-Abbot. Acres: 2,010. Real property: £3,185. Population: 205. Houses: 45. The land abounds in tors and rocks, and was anciently held by the Brians. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Exeter. Value: £286. Patrons: the Rev. T. Wolston and others. The church is ancient."
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Denbury
The former parish of Denbury was absorbed into Torbryan in 1885. It can still be found as a sizeable village in Teignbridge District.
A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Denbury from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1871-72:
- "DENBURY, a village and a parish in Newton-Abbot [registration] district, Devon. The village stands near the South Devon railway, 3 miles SW of Newton-Abbot; has a post office under Newton-Abbot, and a fair on 20 Sept.; and was once a borough and a market-town. The parish comprises 1,068 acres. Real property: £1,980. Population: 410. Houses: 97. The property is divided among a few. The manor belongs to the family of Taylor; and Denbury House, a Tudor mansion, is the seat of the Fronds. Denbury Down is crowned by an ancient elliptical camp. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Exeter. Value: £173. Patron: the Rev. J. H. Reibey. The church is very ancient, with low square tower; was recently renovated; and contains several tablets to the Taylors. There are a Baptist chapel, and charities £24."
Manor of Denbury
The historic manor of Denbury is currently owned by Timothy Roger Howe. It was held successively by the families of Reynell, Taylor, Froude, Curtis, and Townsend. The monuments to the Taylor family are displayed in the Taylor Chapel of Denbury Church. The Reynell and Taylor families also held the adjoining manors of East Ogwell and West Ogwell.
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.
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- 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.
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- 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.)
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