Ottery St Mary, Devon Family History Guide
Ottery St Mary is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Devon. Alfington, 2 miles north-east from Ottery St. Mary and 2½ from Sidmouth Junction, was formed into an ecclesiastical parish Dec. 29, 1882, from the civil parish of Ottery St. Mary.
Other places in the parish include: Wiggaton, Alfington, Alphington, Cadhay, Fluxton, Fairmile, Gosford, Rill, and West Hill.
Parish church:
Alfington: SS. James James and Anne, erected in 1849 by the late Hon. Mr. Justice Coleridge, and consecrated Sept. 29, 1882.
Parish registers begin: 1601
Nonconformists include: Independent/Congregational, Presbyterian, and Wesleyan Methodist.
Table of Contents
Adjacent Parishes
Parish History
Ottery St. Mary
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870
OTTERY-ST. MARY, a town, a parish, a sub-district, and a hundred, in Devon.
The town stands on the river Otter, adjacent to a railway in course of formation in 1867, from the London, Yeovil, and Exeter railway to Sidmouth and Salterton, 2¾ miles SW of Ottery-Road r. station, and 6 SW of Honiton.
It is a place of considerable antiquity; was once sectioned into three parts, called Ottery, St. Mary, Ottery, St. Budeaux, and Ottery, St. Saviour.
It had a college for 40 members, founded in 1337 by Bishop Grandison, with revenues estimated in the time of Henry VIII. at £303, and given then to the Earl of Hertford; was occupied by alternately the parliamentarians and the royalists in the civil wars of Charles I.; suffered great devastation by pestilence during an occupancy by the parliamentarians; was visited at that time by Oliver Cromwell, and in 1688 by the Prince of Orange.
It had for residents Sir Walter Raleigh and W. Browne, author of “Britain’s Pastorals,” and for natives the poet Coleridge and the garter-king-at-arms Sir Isaac Heard.
It suffered damage or destruction of about 120 houses by an accidental fire in May 1866; is somewhat irregularly built but pleasantly and picturesquely situated, with bold sheltering hills on the E and the W; is a seat of petty sessions; and has a post-office under Exeter, three chief inns, a bridge, a magnificent ancient church, Independent and Wesleyan chapels, a grammar-school, national and parish schools, alms-houses, and charities administered by feoffees, whose income amounts to £797.
The church is variously early English, decorated, and perpendicular; was partly built in 1260, by Bishop Bronescombe, after the model of Exeter cathedral; includes portions added by Bishop Grandison; comprises nave, transept, choir, and Lady chapel, with two towers; underwent careful restoration in 1849-50; shows many features of much interest and great beauty; and contains a piscina, two sets of sedilia, a chancel screen, a stone reredos, a modern inlaid marble font, and a number of ancient elaborate monuments.
The ancient college was connected with it; and two suffragan bishops, Cornish of Tyne and Chard of Solubræ, were wardens; while Barclay, the author of the “Ship of Fools,” was a priest.
The grammar-school was founded by Henry VIII. in 1546, on the dissolution of the ancient college; is endowed and kept in repair from the small tithes, vested in the church corporation; had as a master, for many years, the father of the poet Coleridge; and numbers among its pupils Bishops Luxmoore, Coleridge, and Patteson, and Judges Buller and Coleridge.
A weekly market is held on Thursday; great markets, on the first Thursday of Aug.; and the first Thursday of Dec.; and fairs, on the last Tuesday of March and the third Tuesday of Sept. A considerable manufactory of serges was formerly carried on, but went into decline; and an extensive silk factory, for shoe ribbons, handkerchiefs, and other fabrics, is still in operation. Pop. of the town in 1861, 2, 429. Houses, 542.
The parish contains also the hamlets of Alphington, Fluxton, Tipton, and Wiggaton, and the tythings of the Town, Alphington, Fluxton, Tipton, Wiggaton, Rill, Gosford, and Cadhay. Acres, 9, 942. Real property, £17, 806 Pop. in 1851, 4, 421; in 1861, 4, 340. Houses, 925.
The manor was given by Edward the Confessor to the Cathedral church of St. Mary at Rouen; passed to Bishop Grandison, by purchase, in 1334: went to the Crown in the time of Henry VIII., and passed to successively a Mr. Burridge, Sir George Yonge, John M. Howe, Esq., and Sir John Kennaway, Bart. Heath’s Court is the seat of Sir J. T. Coleridge. Cadhay, a Tudor mansion, belongs to Sir Thomas Hare, Bart. Gosford House is the seat of Sir H. A. Farrington, Bart. Ash is the property of the Markers; Holcombe, of the Grants; Knightstone, of the Drurys; and Thorne, of the Episcopal schools at Exeter.
The parish is cut ecclesiastically into the sections of St. Mary, with a pop. of 3,056; St. Michael, with a pop. of 350; Tipton, with a pop. of 470; and Escot, with a pop. of 464, adjoined to a section of Talaton parish, with a pop.of 70. It also has a chaplain priest connected with St. Mary s church, and contains a chapel of ease at Alphington.
The living of St. Mary is a vicarage, and the other livings are vicarages in the diocese of Exeter. Value of the vicarage of St. Mary, £162; of the chaplaincy of St. Mary, £87; of the vicarage of St. Michael, £80; of the chaplaincy of Alphington, £60; of the vicarages of Tipton and Escot, separately noticed. Patron of the vicarage of St. Mary, the Lord Chancellor; of the chaplaincy of St. Mary, Four Governors of the Church; of the charges of St. Michael and Alphington, the Vicar. St. Michael’s church was built in 1846, is in the early English style, and contains 192 sittings. Alphington church was built in 1849, and contains 120 sittings.
There were ancient chapels of St. Budeaux and St. Saviour in the town, and domestic chapels at Holcombe and Knightstone.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
Leonard’s Gazetteer of England and Wales 1850
Ottery (St. Mary), 161 miles S.W. London, and 12 m. E. Exeter. Mrkt, Tues. P. 4194.
Source: Leonard’s Gazetteer of England and Wales; Second Edition; C. W. Leonard, London; 1850
Fairmile
Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales Circa 1870
Fairmile, a hamlet in Ottery-St. Mary and Tallaton parishes, Devon; 1¾ mile NE by N of Ottery-St. Mary. It has a country hotel, and commands a fine distant view of Dartmoor.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
Parish Records
FamilySearch
Ottery St. Mary
Alfington
Directories
Alfington Kellys Directory 1902
ALFINGTON, a hamlet, 2 miles north-east from Ottery St. Mary and 2½ from Sidmouth Junction, was formed into an ecclesiastical parish Dec. 29, 1882, from the civil parish of Ottery St. Mary, and is in the Eastern division of the county, Ottery St. Mary hundred, Honiton union and county court district, rural deanery of Ottery and archdeaconry and diocese of Exeter.
The church of SS. James James and Anne, erected in 1849 by the late Hon. Mr. Justice Coleridge, and consecrated Sept. 29, 1882, is an edifice of brick in the Early English style, consisting of chancel, nave, south porch and a western turret containing one bell: it has eleven stained lancet windows and a font of Devonshire marble: at the west end of the church is a marble monument to John Coleridge Patteson D.D. Bishop of Melanesia, murdered by the natives of Santa Cruz, Sept. 20, 1871: the eagle lectern of oak is dated 1396 : five brass hanging lamps and a brass communion book-stand were placed in the church in 1887 : the interior, including the vestry, was wainscoted in 1891 at the cost of Lady Coleridge: there are 120 sittings. A lych gate to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of H. late M. Queen Victoria was erected in 1897. The register dates from the year 1883.
The living is a vicarage, net yearly value 191, with residence, in the gift of trustees, and held since 1881 by the Bev. Gerald M’Carthy Lewin Beade B.A. of Exeter College, Oxford. The parsonage house was built in 1849. The principal landowner is Thomas Glanville esq. who resides in Jamaica. The soil is mixed; the subsoil is marl. The chief crops are wheat, oats, barley and pasture. The population ‘in 1891 was 155.
Verger and Clerk, Henry Stiling.
Wall Letter Box cleared at 8.23 a.m. & 6.20 p.m. week days. Letters arrive at 7.30 a.m. & 5.30 p.m. through Ottery, the nearest money order & telegraph office
National School (mixed), built in 1849, for 50 children; average attendance, 40; Miss Mary Western, mistress.
Channon John
Beade Bev. Gerald M’Carthy Lewin B.A. Vicarage
Sanders Matthew
Sanders Mrs. Rock villa
Tolman John
COMMERCIAL.
Baker John, market gardener
Basten William, carpenter
Carter John, thatcher
Chard William, farmer
Cox John, boot repairer
Chown Mary (Mrs.), dairy
Cockram Edwin, farmer
Edwards William, farmer, Raxhayes
Franks Alfred Ernest, farmer, Rock fm
Merchant Louisa (Mrs.), dress maker
Newton John, Alfington inn
Page Isaac Aubury Lee, farmer, Manor farm
Retter John, farmer. Four elms
Stiling Henry, boot maker
Wilmington Mrs. farmer
Administration
- County: Devon
- Civil Registration District: Honiton
- Probate Court: Court of the Bishop (Consistory) of the Archdeaconry of Exeter
- Diocese: Exeter
- Rural Deanery: Aylesbeare
- Poor Law Union: Honiton
- Hundred: Ottery St Mary
- Province: Canterbury