Membury is a village three miles north west of

Axminster Axminster is a market town and civil parish on the eastern border of the county of Devon in England. It is from the county town of Exeter. The town is built on a hill overlooking the River Axe which heads towards the English Channel at Ax ...

East Devon East Devon is a local government district in Devon, England. Its council has been based in Honiton since February 2019, and the largest town is Exmouth (with a population of 34,432 at the time of the 2011 census). The district was formed ...

district. The population at the 2011 Census was 501. The village has a 13th-century church, dedicated to

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 ...

, with a tall slim tower. In the aisle there is a monument to Sir Shilston Calmady, who was killed in a skirmish near the village in February 1646, and was buried in the chancel. The founding editor of the medical journal,

The Lancet ''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal and one of the oldest of its kind. It is also the world's highest-impact academic journal. It was founded in England in 1823. The journal publishes original research articles, ...

Thomas Wakley Thomas Wakley (11 July 179516 May 1862) was an English surgeon. He gained fame as a social reformer who campaigned against incompetence, privilege and nepotism. He was the founding editor of ''The Lancet'', a radical Member of Parliament (MP) a ...

, was born at Membury in 1795. The village is within the Blackdown Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and lies just to the north east of Beckford Bridge over the

River Yarty The River Yarty is a river in east Devon, England, near the boundary with Somerset and Dorset. Course The river is about long. The source is in Staple Hill in the Blackdown Hills. It flows on a roughly southern course through Bishopswood, brie ...

, which is the oldest

packhorse bridge A packhorse bridge is a bridge intended to carry packhorses (horses loaded with sidebags or panniers) across a river or stream. Typically a packhorse bridge consists of one or more narrow (one horse wide) masonry arches, and has low parapets so ...

in East Devon. Near to the village there is former

Quaker Meeting House A Friends meeting house is a meeting house of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), where meeting for worship is usually held. Typically, Friends meeting houses are simple and resemble local residential buildings. Steeples, spires, and ...

that is now a hotel.

Historic estates

The parish of Membury contains several historic estates including: * Yarty, long the seat of the Fry family. PerryArms

*Waterhouse (anciently ''Waters, AtWaters, West Waters''), anciently the seat of the ''de la Water'' family (gallicized to ''de l'eau'' ("from the water")Risdon, p.21), which family, as was usual, had taken their surname from their seat. It was so named (according to

Pole Pole may refer to: Astronomy *Celestial pole, the projection of the planet Earth's axis of rotation onto the celestial sphere; also applies to the axis of rotation of other planets *Pole star, a visible star that is approximately aligned with the ...

(d.1635)) from its closeness to the

and "took the name of the water adjoyining & floatinge under it".Pole, p.118 Isabell Water, daughter and heiress of William Water, married Nicholas Hele, a younger son of Nicholas Hele of Hele, in the parish of

Cornwood Cornwood is a village and civil parish in the South Hams in Devon, England. The parish has a population of 988. The village is part of the electoral ward called ''Cornwood'' and Sparkwell. The ward population at the 2011 census was 2,321. Blac ...

, Devon. His granddaughter was the heiress Emma Hele, who by her marriage (during the reign of King Henry VI (1422-1461)) to Christopher Perry brought Waters to her son William Perry who married a daughter of John Fry of adjoining Yarty. After a few generations the family became extinct in the male line on the death of William Perry, who according to Pole: "wasted all his estate except this only", which sole possession he bequeathed to his four sisters and co-heiresses. They sold it to William Fry of adjoining Yarty (or Nicholas Fry (d.1632), Vivian, Lt.Col. J.L., (Ed.) The Visitations of the County of Devon: Comprising the Heralds' Visitations of 1531, 1564 & 1620, Exeter, 1895, p.375, pedigree of Fry. Pole (p.118) states the purchaser's mother was of the Newbiry family of Stokland, whilst the only son of that lady given in the Heraldic Visitations is Nicholas Fry (d.1632), not William

Sheriff of Devon The High Sheriff of Devon is the Queen's representative for the County of Devon, a territory known as his/her bailiwick. Selected from three nominated people, they hold the office for one year. They have judicial, ceremonial and administrative f ...

in 1626, who rebuilt Yarty and whose monument survives in Membury Church), who amalgamated it with his other local estates and according to Pole: "made a very lardge & profitable & commodious demesnes, replenished with pastures, meadows, arable land, woode & water & all com(m)odities belonginge unto hospitality". The arms of Perry of Waters were: ''Quarterly gules and or, on a bend argent three lions passant azure''.

References

External links

Membury Community School
East Devon District Villages in Devon {{Devon-geo-stub