Alverdiscott (pronounced ''Alscott'', or ) is a village,

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 ...

, former manor and former ecclesiastical parish in the Torridge 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 ...

, England, centred south-south-west of

Barnstaple Barnstaple ( or ) is a river-port town in North Devon, England, at the River Taw's lowest crossing point before the Bristol Channel. From the 14th century, it was licensed to export wool and won great wealth. Later it imported Irish wool, bu ...

Demography

A rural population – having 105 homes – Alverdiscott's population grew by five in the ten years to 2011 according to the decennial census of that year.Key Statistics: Population.
( 2011 census Parish: Alverdiscott) Retrieved 2015-06-20.

Transport

Roads

The B3232 skirts the nucleus of the village, the main road between Great Torrington and Barnstaple though not from the town to points east and west of Barnstaple being served by A-roads. Its access is a little further than as the crow files, particularly along roads leading through or around Barnstaple's western suburb and parks; it is close to the direct distance of in the opposite direction from Great Torrington, a town with a major

Conservation Area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...

relative to its size.

Railways

The low daily frequency

community railway Community rail in Britain is the support of railway lines and stations by local organisations, usually through community rail partnerships (CRPs) comprising railway operators, local councils, and other community organisations, and rail user group ...

to North Devon passes in a valley east of the village serving the rural, request stop of Chapelton railway station which is slightly closer than Barnstaple and can be accessed via footpaths leading up from its steep valley.

Economy

Alverdiscott has settled low unemployment, agriculture, home-working, commuting to Barnstaple and other towns across west Devon. Seasonally the village generates recreational and tourism-derived income such as from holiday lodges, since the village is south of Barnstaple and east of a tall cliff-side part of the

South West Coast Path The South West Coast Path is England's longest waymarked long-distance footpath and a National Trail. It stretches for , running from Minehead in Somerset, along the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, to Poole Harbour in Dorset. Because it rises ...

, Westward Ho! beaches and within easy reach of visitor gardens and golf courses along the

River Torridge The River Torridge is a river in Devon in England; it rises near Meddon. The river describes a long loop through Devon farming country where its tributaries the Lew and Okement join before meeting the Taw at Appledore and flowing into the Bristo ...

. An adventure activities centre is to the south at Southdown in the neighbouring parish of Huntshaw.

Localities

The parish has three sublocalities, or more archaically, hamlets, Woodtown, Alverdiscott in the west, Alscott Barton describes part of the village nucleus and Stony Cross, Alverdiscott is in between these two places.

History

A Scheduled Ancient Monument is associated with the place, a Roman marching camp fort in the west of the area, on a former

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly ...

enclosure. The church is built of granite with sloped slate roofs over the main body (nave) and squatter extension to the nave. It has an archetypal Norman

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a " sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mo ...

, Norman doorway, tall tower and sixteenth-century

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, acces ...

and is a

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

architecturally in the middle category, grade II*. The village has long lost pronunciation of its middle letters yet refused in the Victorian era to adjust its older spelling in favour of a more phonetic modern form except when describing "Alscott Barton",Webbery Manor the former

demesne A demesne ( ) or domain was all the land retained and managed by a lord of the manor under the feudal system for his own use, occupation, or support. This distinguished it from land sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants. The concept or ...

of the manor. Within the parish is the historic estate of Webbery, listed 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 manusc ...

as ''WIBERIE''.

Manor of Alverdiscott

References

External links

Devon Local Studies - Alverdiscott community page

Alverdiscott at GENUKI
* {{authority control Villages in Devon Roman fortifications in Devon Roman fortified camps in England Torridge District