Bickleigh

BICKLEIGH, a parish and village, 4 miles S. of Tiverton, and 10 miles N. of Exeter, is in Tiverton union, and county court district, Cullompton petty sessional division, Tiverton polling district of North Devon, Hayridge hundred, Exeter archdeaconry, and East Tiverton rural deanery. It had 284 inhabitants, (140 males, 144 females) in 1871, living in 58 houses, on 1835 acres of land, including Chederleigh hamlet. The Misses Carew are owners of the manor, and of a great part of the soil; the rest belongs to C. A. W. Troyte, Esq., and a few smaller proprietors. Bickleigh anciently belonged to a family of its own name, and passed from the Courtenays to a younger branch of the Carews. The celebrated Bampfylde Moore Carew, commonly called King of the Beggars, was the son of the Rev. Theodore Carew, rector of Bickleigh. He was born here in 1690, and, after his extraordinary adventures, spent the two last years of his eventful life in his native, village, and was buried in the church in 1758. Here also was buried Major John Gabriel Stedman, who published the History of Surinam, and died in 1797. The CHURCH (St. Mary), was mostly rebuilt in 1848, at the cost of £1400, and has a tower and five bells. It contains several monuments of the Carew family, one of which has recumbent effigies of a knight and lady. The east window is filled with painted glass, by Wailes, in memory of the late Rev. Thomas Carew, rector of the parish, and his wife Holway Carew. The rectory, valued in K.B. at £18 4s. 9½d., and now at £444, is in the patronage of the Misses Carew, and incumbency of the Rev. Robert B. Carew, M.A., who has a good residence and 50 acres of glebe. The tithes were commuted in 1842, for £359 per annum. The NATIONAL SCHOOL was built in 1841 at a cost of £245, defrayed by subscription, aided by grants from the National Society and the Committee of Council on Education. In 1708, £95 poor's money was laid out in the purchase of 4 acres of land, called Ware Park, now let for £10 10s. per annum. There is also £100 3 per Cent. Stock, purchased with money which arose from the sale of timber felled on the said land. The annual income (£13 10s.) is distributed about Christmas among the most deserving poor; as also is about £15, arising from three-fourths of the rent of two cottages and ½ acre of land at Tiverton, left by John Lovell. (See Tiverton.)

POST OFFICE at Mr. Francis Baker's. Letters are received at 8 a.m., and despatched at 5.25 p.m. viâ Tiverton, which is the nearest Money Order Office and Railway Station.