Bishop's Morchard
BISHOP'S MORCHARD, or Morchard Bishop, is a parish and village, 6 miles N.W. by N. of Crediton, in Crediton union, county court district, hundred and petty seaaional division, Northern division of the county, Exeter archdeaconry, and Cadbury rural deanery. Its parish, which includes the small hamlets, &c., of Oldbourough, Knightstone, Lowertown, Middlecott, Woodgate, Frost, Redhill, Leigh, and Woodlane, had 1473 inhabitants (734 males, 739 females) in 1871, living in 324 houses, on 7088 acres of land. Henry Churchill, Esq., is lord of the manor, which anciently belonged to the Bishops of Exeter, and afterwards passed to the Carew, Southcote, Boucher, and other families. Henry Churchill, Esq., T. C. Tucker, Esq., the Rev. B. T. Radford, Thomas Bennett, Esq., George Tucker, Esq., W. Leach, Esq., and the Mortimer and other families are owners of the soil. A large fair for sheep and cattle is held in the parish on the Monday after September 9th. BARTON HOUSE, the residence of Henry Churchill, Esq., is a neat house, built about 20 years ago. The CHURCH (St. Mary) is a fine antique structure, with a painted east window, and a tower containing six bells. The living is a rectory, valued in K.B. at £36, and now at £1000, in the patronage of the Rev. R. Bartholomew, and incumbency of the Rev. James John Rowe, M.A., who has 63A. 3R. 5P. of glebe, and a rectory-house, built in 1790. The tithes were commuted in 1831 for £750 a year. The CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH was built in 1860 at a cost of about £400, and has 220 sittings; a Sunday School has since been added at a further outlay of £150. The WESLEYANS and BIBLE CHRISTIANS have also chapels here. The NATIONAL SCHOOL, which was erected in 1872 at an outlay of £2000, has accommodation for 280 children. The Poor's Land was purchased in 1713 for £250, given by about 20 donors. It consists of a farm of 50 acres, called Ingoodown, let for about £30 a year, to which is added the interest of £100, which arose from the sale of timber, and the interest of about £220, which arose from the benefactions of donors named Comyns, Quick, Pridham, &c. The poor parishioners have six yearly rent charges, viz., 20s., left by John Quicke, in 1660 ; 13s. 4d., left by Alexander Arundell, in 1667; 10s., left by John Chilcott, in 1700; 10s., left by Philip Lane, in 1817; and 20s., left by John Quicke, jun., in 1705. Mrs. Thomasine Tucker, in 1733, left a yearly rent charge of £10, out of Wolland Down, at Sandford, to be applied as follows: £6 for schooling 16 poor children, and £4 in providing them with blue clothing. She also left 24s. a year out of the same estate, to be expended in coats for three poor men. The poor parishioners have £10 yearly from Mrs. Tuckfield's Charity. (See Crediton.) In 1809, Abraham Way left £100 Three per Cent. Consols, in trust to apply the dividends in providing linen cloth for shirts, to be given to poor men of this parish.
POST, MONEY ORDER, and TELEGRAPH OFFICE, and SAVINGS BANK, at Mr. Edward Tolley's. Letters are received at 5.40 a,m., and are despatched at 7.40 p.m.
Transcribed from History, Gazetteer and Directory of Devon, by William White, 2nd edition, 1878-9