Dolton is a small 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 authorit ...

in the

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 ...

district of

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. Devo ...

, south-west

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, surrounded, clockwise from the north, by Beaford, Ashreigney,

Winkleigh Winkleigh is a civil parish and small village in Devon, England. It is part of the local government area of Torridge District Council. The population of the parish at the 2011 census was 1,305, compared to 1,079 in 1901. The population of the el ...

, Dowland,

Meeth Meeth is a small village roughly north-northwest of Okehampton and west-northwest of Exeter. It lies to the west of the River Torridge. In the past, ball clay mines were a major source of employment in the village, lying just to the west, howev ...

, Huish and Merton. It has a population of around 900. Dolton appears in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

of 1086 as ''Duueltone''. The name may mean "farmstead in the open country frequented by doves" (

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

''dūfe'' + ''feld'' + ''tūn''). St Edmund's Church, Dolton - geograph

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 ...

passes by Dolton. The parish church is dedicated to St Edmund. The historic stately home Stafford Barton is close by. Dolton is twinned with Amfreville in France, and Hillerse in Germany.

Anthony Horneck Anthony Horneck (german: Anton Horneck; 1641–1697) was a German Protestant clergyman and scholar who made his career in England. He became an influential evangelical figure in London from the later 1670s, in partnership with Richard Smithies ...

FRS, the Protestant theologian, lived in Dolton between 1670 and 1671. Henry Bentinck, 11th Earl of Portland, lived at a house called Little Cudworthy and died there in 1997. Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts lived at Halsdon House near the village for some years until his death in 2021.

References

External links

*
Dolton.org.uk/
{{authority control Villages in Devon Torridge District