St Michael's church, Wembworthy - geograph

Wembworthy is a small village,

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

and former manor 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. It is situated in the valley of the

River Taw The River Taw () rises at Taw Head, a spring on the central northern flanks of Dartmoor, crosses North Devon and at the town of Barnstaple, formerly a significant port, empties into Bideford Bay in the Bristol Channel, having formed a large ...

, 8 miles north-east of the towns of

Hatherleigh Hatherleigh is a small market town in west Devon, England. It hosts an arts festival in July, and a carnival in November featuring two flaming tar barrel runs. The Walruses meet on New Year's Day to jump into the River Lew to raise money for ...

and 12 miles south of

South Molton South Molton is a town in Devon, England. It is part of the North Devon local government district. The town is on the River Mole. According to the 2001 census the civil parish of South Molton had a population of 4,093, increasing to 5,108 at the ...

. St Michael's Church is the parish church, much rebuilt in the 1840s. The vestigial remnants of two mediaeval earthwork castles survive within the parish, one in Heywood Wood, of

motte and bailey A motte-and-bailey castle is a European fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised area of ground called a motte, accompanied by a walled courtyard, or Bailey (castle), bailey, surrounded by a protective Rampart (fortification ...

form, the other to its south of ringwork and bailey form.

History

In the time of

Tristram Risdon Tristram Risdon (c. 1580 – 1640) was an English antiquarian and topographer, and the author of ''Survey of the County of Devon''. He was able to devote most of his life to writing this work. After he completed it in about 1632 it circulated ar ...

(d.1640), Wembworthy was merely a

tithing A tithing or tything was a historic English legal, administrative or territorial unit, originally ten hides (and hence, one tenth of a hundred). Tithings later came to be seen as subdivisions of a manor or civil parish. The tithing's leader or s ...

of the adjacent parish of Brushford, and was thus not apparently a parish of itself.

Historic estates

*Heywood, now the site of New Eggesford House, for many centuries the seat of the Speke family, later of

Whitelackington Whitelackington is a village and civil parish on the A303 one mile north east of Ilminster, in Somerset, England. The parish includes Dillington Park and the hamlets of Atherstone and Ashwell. Etymology The village's name is from Old English an ...

in Somerset. The ''Speke

Chantry A chantry is an ecclesiastical term that may have either of two related meanings: # a chantry service, a Christian liturgy of prayers for the dead, which historically was an obiit, or # a chantry chapel, a building on private land, or an area in ...

'' in

Exeter Cathedral Exeter Cathedral, properly known as the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter in Exeter, is an Anglican cathedral, and the seat of the Bishop of Exeter, in the city of Exeter, Devon, in South West England. The present building was complete by about 140 ...

contains the effigy of Sir

John Speke Captain John Hanning Speke (4 May 1827 – 15 September 1864) was an English explorer and officer in the British Indian Army who made three exploratory expeditions to Africa. He is most associated with the search for the source of the Nile ...

(1442-1518) of Heywood and

Brampford Speke Brampford Speke ( ) is a small village in Devon, to the north of Exeter. The population is 419. It is located on red sandstone cliffs overlooking the river Exe. Its sister village of Upton Pyne lies to its southwest, and Stoke Canon is across t ...

in Devon and of Whitelackington. It was said by Risdon (d. 1640) that a secret underground passage connected Heywood House with the ancient motte and bailey Heywood Castle. The present building known as Heywood House was built in the mid-19th century in the Tudor Gothic style as a

cottage orné Cottage orné () dates back to a movement of "rustic" stylised cottages of the late 18th and early 19th centuries during the Romantic movement, when some sought to discover a more natural way of living as opposed to the formality of the preceding ...

Newton Fellowes, 4th Earl of Portsmouth Newton Fellowes, 4th Earl of Portsmouth (26 June 1772 – 9 January 1854) was an English politician, styled Hon. Newton Wallop until 1794 and Hon. Newton Fellowes from 1794 to 1853. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Andover from 1802 to ...

(1772–1854), builder of New Eggesford House. *

Rashleigh Rashleigh is a surname of a prominent family from Devon and Cornwall in England, which originated in the 14th century or before at the estate of Rashleigh in the parish of Wembworthy, Devon. The principal branches were: *Rashleigh of Rashleig ...

, historic seat of the ancient Rashleigh family, a junior branch of which is still seated at

Menabilly Menabilly ( kw, Men Ebeli, meaning ''stone of colts'') is a historic estate on the south coast of Cornwall, England, situated within the parish of Tywardreath on the Gribben peninsula about west of Fowey. It has been the seat of the Rashle ...

in Cornwall (see Rashleigh Baronets), and later inherited by the Clotworthy family formerly of nearby Clotworthy. Risdon, Tristram (d. 1640), Survey of Devon, 1811 edition, London, 1811, with 1810 Additions, p.295

References

{{authority control Villages in Devon