Sampford Peverell 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 Mid-

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. An old Saxon settlement, it was called Sanforda in the 1086 Doomsday Book. Its current name reflects its inclusion in the

Honour of Peverel The Honour of Peverel (also known as the Feudal Barony of the Peak) is a geographic area in the north of England comprising part of the historic feudal barony held by the Norman Peverel family. The honour was granted to William Peverel (c. 1050 ...

, the lands of

William Peverel William Peverel († 28. January 1114), Latinised to Gulielmus Piperellus), was a Norman knight granted lands in England following the Norman Conquest. Origins Little is known of the origin of the William Peverel the Elder. Of his immediate f ...

and his family. His great-grandson, Hugh Peverell (the name had changed spelling), is buried in the village church of

St John the Baptist John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...

. The parish is surrounded, clockwise from the north, by the parishes of

Hockworthy Hockworthy is a village and civil parish in Devon, England. Its name is Old English and means "Hocca's enclosure". It has a church dedicated to St. Simon and St. Jude which was mostly rebuilt in 1865, and contains a Norman font In metal typ ...

Holcombe Rogus Holcombe Rogus is a village and civil parish in the English county of Devon. In 2001 the population of the parish was 503. The northern boundary of the parish forms part of the county boundary with Somerset and clockwise from the east it is bord ...

Burlescombe Burlescombe (, ) is a village and civil parish in the Mid Devon district of Devon, England. The parish is surrounded, clockwise from the north, by the parishes of Holcombe Rogus, Culmstock, Uffculme, Halberton and Sampford Peverell. According t ...

Halberton Halberton is a village and civil parish in Devon, England. The Grand Western Canal runs through the village. The village is situated between the historic market towns of Tiverton and Cullompton. The large parish has an area of about and it i ...

and

Uplowman Uplowman () is a village and civil parish in Devon, situated about 4 miles north-east of the town of Tiverton. The parish is surrounded, clockwise from the north, by the parishes of Hockworthy, Sampford Peverell, Halberton, Tiverton, and Huntsh ...

. The New Rectory was built in 1836, at the expense of the

Grand Western Canal The Grand Western Canal ran between Taunton in Somerset and Tiverton in Devon in the United Kingdom. The canal had its origins in various plans, going back to 1796, to link the Bristol Channel and the English Channel by a canal, bypassing Lands ...

Company, in compensation for cutting through the grounds and demolishing the south wing of the Old Rectory which had been built for the use of

Margaret Beaufort Lady Margaret Beaufort (usually pronounced: or ; 31 May 1441/43 – 29 June 1509) was a major figure in the Wars of the Roses of the late fifteenth century, and mother of King Henry VII of England, the first Tudor monarch. A descendant of ...

, mother of Henry VII. The

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

opened a station at Sampford Peverell in 1932 but it closed on 5 October 1964; the site has since been reused as

Tiverton Parkway railway station Tiverton Parkway railway station is on the Bristol to Exeter line in Devon, England. The "Parkway" name signifies that the station is a distance from Tiverton town itself: it is actually located in the civil parish of Burlescombe, near Sampfo ...

(opened in 1986).

Poltergeist hoax

In 1810 it was reported that the house of a John Chave in the village was experiencing dramatic

poltergeist In ghostlore, a poltergeist ( or ; German for "rumbling ghost" or "noisy spirit") is a type of ghost or spirit that is responsible for physical disturbances, such as loud noises and objects being moved or destroyed. Most claims or fictional descr ...

activity. The case was discussed in the national press of the time, and Chave's house gained such notoriety that in 1811 it was besieged by a mob of rowdy workmen known as

navvies Navvy, a clipping of navigator ( UK) or navigational engineer ( US), is particularly applied to describe the manual labourers working on major civil engineering projects and occasionally (in North America) to refer to mechanical shovels and eart ...

. In the scenes that followed, Chave was forced to open fire on the crowd in self-defence, killing one person, a George Helps, buried in the churchyard. The paranormal activity turned out to be noises made by smugglers behind a false wall. The house in question no longer stands, but its location can be pinpointed courtesy of a village information board that denominates it 'The Ghost House, Higher Town - now demolished'.Codd, Daniel. ''Paranormal Devon'' (2013). Amberley Publishing. p.30-34. .

References

* Stabb, John (1908–16
''Some Old Devon Churches''

External links

Paranormal hoaxes Villages in Devon Grand Western Canal {{Devon-geo-stub