Ottery St. Mary
The town is pleasantly situated on the east bank of the river Otter, and within a mile of the great road from London to Exeter. It is irregularly built on very uneven ground, and, with the exception of a few respectable houses in the higher parts of it, consists chiefly of cottages: the inhabitants are amply supplied with water flowing freely through the streets. The surrounding country is fertile, and diversified with pleasing scenery. The manufacture of serge, which was formerly carried on, has been superseded by the establishment of extensive silk-works, whose machinery is impelled by a water-wheel of very large dimensions; in this concern between 300 and 400 persons are employed, principally in manufacturing handkerchiefs and ribbons. Some lace is also made in the town. The market is on Thursday; and fairs, chiefly for cattle, are held on the Tuesday before Palm-Sunday, on Whit-Tuesday, and August 15th, at the last of which great quantities of cheese are sold: a great market, likewise, takes place on the Thursday before the second Friday in every month. Courts leet and baron occur annually for the manor, at which two constables for the town and two for the parish are appointed; there is also a constable for the hundred, whose office is permanent.
The parish comprises 8500 acres, of which 447 are common or waste. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £20, and in the patronage of the Crown; net income, £150. After the dissolution of the college founded by Bishop Grandison, the revenue of which was estimated at £338. 2. 9., the site was granted to Edward, Earl of Hertford, in the 37th of Henry VIII.; and in the same year the king gave the church and cemetery, with the vicarage and collegiate buildings, in trust to four inhabitants of the town, whom he incorporated as "The Four Governors of the hereditaments and goods of the Church of St. Mary, Ottery." Under this charter the governors make certain annual payments to the vicar, chaplain-priest, and schoolmaster. The great tithes of the parish belong to the Dean and Canons of Windsor, and the small tithes to the governors. The church is a noble structure in the early English style, with some portions of more recent date, and has two towers, which form the transepts, a nave and choir, both with aisles, and a Lady chapel. The groined roof was added by Bishop Grandison; the north aisle of the nave is in the later English style, with a very beautiful ceiling of fan tracery and pendants: at the east end of the Lady chapel, and also at the west end of the church, are some richly-canopied niches. At Tipton is a district church, dedicated to St. John, the cost of which was defrayed chiefly by voluntary contributions, largely promoted by Sir John Kennaway and the family of Mr. Justice Coleridge; it was consecrated May 6th, 1840, and the living is a perpetual curacy, in the gift of the Vicar, with a net income of £80. At West Hill, two miles south of the town, on the Exmouth road, is a church consecrated in September 1846, and dedicated to St. Michael and All Angels; it is in the early English style, and cost £2000. A district is attached to it, comprising above 2000 acres, formerly a wild heath, but rapidly improving; the living is in the patronage of the Vicar. There are places of worship for Independents and Wesleyans.
The King's Grammar School was founded in 1546, by Henry VIII., who endowed it with £10 per annum from the funds of the church corporation, to which benefactions were subsequently added; among these was a donation of land, in the year 1666, by Edward Salter. In this school were educated, among other eminent characters, Sir Francis Buller, Bart., successively judge of the courts of common pleas and king's bench; Dr. Luxmoore, late Bishop of St. Asaph; Dr. Coleridge, late Bishop of Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands; and Sir J. T. Coleridge, Knt., one of the present judges of the court of queen's bench. The late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the profound philosopher and gifted poet, was born in the school-house, in 1772, his father being master. Some almshouses were founded by Robert Hone, a maternal ancestor of Sir Thomas Bodley's; and there are numerous bequests for distribution among the poor. The water of a spring near the town, called "Hawkins' well," is said to be efficacious in diseases of the eye; and persons afflicted with the stone have received great relief from the water of a spring in Yonder-street, which acts powerfully as a solvent. Among the natives of the parish may be named Sir Isaac Heard, garter king at arms. The notorious Joanna Southcott was born here in 1750.
Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.