Bishops Tawton, Devon
Historical Description
Bishops-Tawton, a village and parish in Devonshire. The village stands on the river Taw, 2 miles S by E of Barnstaple station on the G.W.R. and L. & S.W.R., and has a post office under Barnstaple, which is the telegraph office; money order office, Newport. The parish includes Newport, a suburb of Barnstaple. Acreage, 3881; population of the civil parish, 781; of the ecclesiastical, 770. It was the seat of the see of Devonshire, from the division of the see of Sherborne in 905 till the removal of the bishops to Crediton, and it possesses some remains of the Episcopal palace. The manor belonged to the Bishops of Devonshire, but was conveyed in 1550 to the Russell family, and belongs now to the Duke of Bedford. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Exeter; value, £440. Patron, the Bishop of Exeter. The church is an ancient edifice of nave, aisle, and chancel, with low square tower, was restored in 1866, and contains monuments of the Bouchiers, Earls of Bath. The perpetual curacy of Newport is a separate benefice.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Devon | |
Ecclesiastical parish | Bishop's Tawton St. John the Baptist | |
Hundred | South Molton | |
Poor Law union | Barnstaple |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Bishops Tawton from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Tawton, Bishop's (St. John the Baptist))
Maps
Online maps of Bishops Tawton are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following newspapers covering Devon online:
Visitations Heraldic
The Visitation of the County of Devon in the year 1564, with additions from the earlier visitation of 1531, is online.
The Visitations of the County of Devon, comprising the Heralds' Visitations of 1531, 1564, & 1620, with additions by Lieutant-Colonel J.L. Vivian, published for the author by Henry S. Eland, Exeter 1895 is online.