Cookbury is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in the

local government district The districts of England (also known as local authority districts or local government districts to distinguish from unofficial city districts) are a level of subnational division of England used for the purposes of local government. As the st ...

Torridge Torridge may refer to: * Torridge District, a local government district in the county of Devon, England * River Torridge, is a river in Devon in England * Torridge Lass Suffix beginning with F ''Empire Fabian'' ''Empire Fabian'' was an E ...

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

, England. The parish, which lies about five miles east of the town of

Holsworthy Holsworthy is a market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Torridge District, Torridge district of Devon, England, some west of Exeter. The River Deer, a tributary of the River Tamar, forms the western boundary of the paris ...

, is surrounded clockwise from the north by the parishes of Thornbury,

Bradford Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...

Ashwater Ashwater is a village and civil parish in the Torridge district of Devon, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 651 that had risen to 673 by the 2011 census. It is close to the Cornish border, and is about 10 miles nor ...

Hollacombe Hollacombe is a village and small civil parish in the local government district of Torridge, Devon, England. It lies about 3 miles south east of the town of Holsworthy and is surrounded clockwise from the north by the parishes of Cookbury, As ...

, and

Holsworthy Hamlets Holsworthy Hamlets is a civil parish in the northwest of Devon, England. It forms part of the local government district of Torridge and came into being on 1 April 1900 when the ecclesiastical parish of Holsworthy was split into two. The parish ...

. In 2001 its population was 158, little changed from the 146 residents it had in 1901. The parish church has an unusual dedication to St John the Baptist and the Seven Maccabees and still has its 13th-century tower and

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

. It was designated as redundant in 1982, but classed as a

chapel-of-ease A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently. Often a chapel of ease is deliberately bu ...

in 1987 and restored in 1992, united with the neighbouring parish of

Walter de Stapledon Walter de Stapledon (or Stapeldon) (1 February 126114 October 1326) was Bishop of Exeter 1308–1326 and twice Lord High Treasurer of England, in 1320 and 1322. He founded Exeter College, Oxford and contributed liberally to the rebuilding of ...

, Bishop of Exeter from 1307 until his death in 1326, was born in the parish at Stapledon, now a farmhouse but once the mansion of the family. The U.K.

national cycle route 3 Route Bristol to Bridgwater West Harptree , Charterhouse , Wookey Hole , Glastonbury The route goes south from Bristol into Somerset and around Chew Valley Lake Bridgwater to Land's End Taunton , Bideford , Bude , Bodmin See also ...

passes through Cookbury linking the

Tarka Trail The Tarka Trail is a series of footpaths and cyclepaths (rail trails) around north Devon, England that follow the route taken by the fictional Tarka the Otter in the book of that name. It covers a total of in a figure-of-eight route, centred o ...

with

Bude Bude (; kw, Porthbud) is a seaside town in north east Cornwall, England, in the civil parish of Bude-Stratton and at the mouth of the River Neet (also known locally as the River Strat). It was sometimes formerly known as Bude Haven.''Cornish ...

on the North Cornwall coast. Within the parish of

& Cookbury are National Trust

Dunsland Dunsland is a historic manor and former house in the parish of Bradford (or Cookbury) near Holsworthy in Devon, England. It was successively home to the Arscott, Bickford, Coham and Dickinson families and, although the ownership records are in ...

(featuring a

SSSI A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

) and a Forestry Commission woodland at

Bramble Wood A bramble is any rough, tangled, prickly shrub, usually in the genus ''Rubus'', which grows blackberries, raspberries, or dewberries. "Bramble" is also used to describe other prickly shrubs, such as roses (''Rosa'' species). The fruits includ ...

References

* Villages in Devon Torridge District {{Devon-geo-stub