Swimbridge (historical spelling: ''Swymbridge'') is a village, parish and former manor in

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 south-east 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 ...

and twinned with the town of St.Honorine Du Fay in Normandy, France. It was the home of the Rev. John "Jack" Russell who first bred the

Jack Russell Terrier The Jack Russell Terrier is a small terrier that has its origins in fox hunting in England. It is principally white-bodied and smooth, rough or broken-coated and can be any colour. Small tan and white terriers that technically belong to oth ...

Etymology

The manor is called ''Birige'' 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 ...

of 1086, when it was held in-chief from King

William the Conqueror William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first House of Normandy, Norman List of English monarchs#House of Norman ...

by an

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

priest named Sawin (or Saewin), whose uncle Brictferth had held it before the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conque ...

of 1066. The honour of being a

tenant-in-chief In medieval and early modern Europe, the term ''tenant-in-chief'' (or ''vassal-in-chief'') denoted a person who held his lands under various forms of feudal land tenure directly from the king or territorial prince to whom he did homage, as op ...

in feudal times was generally restricted to great warriors and close followers of the king, but Sawin was given this land in alms by Queen Matilda, wife of

. It was probably part of the royal manor 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 ...

, and Sawin was probably one of the priests at South Molton. It thenceforward became known as "Sawain's Birige" which eventually transformed into "Swimbridge".

Description

Before the changes to

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 ...

boundaries in 2003, at it was one of the largest in

North Devon North Devon is a local government district in Devon, England. North Devon Council is based in Barnstaple. Other towns and villages in the North Devon District include Braunton, Fremington, Ilfracombe, Instow, South Molton, Lynton and Lynmouth ...

. It formerly hosted a number of historic estates. The village is noted for its

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

(The Parish Church of St. James; tower ca. 1300) which has been described as a ''treasure house'' due to its fine carvings and memorials.

Church

Squint StBridget'sChapel SwimbridgeChurch Devon

According to

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 ...

, writing in the early 17th century, John Mules of Ernesborough built the north aisle of Swimbridge Church, and gave his estate of Furse for the maintenance of it. This is known as St Bridget's Chapel, Rogers, William Henry Hamilton,
The Antient Sepulchral Effigies and Monumental and Memorial Sculpture of Devon
', Exeter, 1877, pp.299–301 or the "North Chancel Chapel". Cherry, Bridget &

Pevsner, Nikolaus Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...

, ''The Buildings of England: Devon''. Yale University Press, 2004. p.771. In his will dated 1422 John D'Abernon requested to be buried in the "newly built aisle". This manorial chapel served to seat the household of the Mules family. It is now mostly occupied by the large Victorian organ and the remaining space serves as a

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...

. It includes an interesting

squint Squinting is the action of looking at something with partially closed eyes. Squinting is most often practiced by people who suffer from refractive errors of the eye who either do not have or are not using their glasses. Squinting helps momentari ...

in the form of the corner of a wall being removed and held up with a column, which would allow the family to view the priest elevating the host at the high altar, the holiest point of the Roman Catholic mass. The surviving roof bosses of the North Chancel Chapel display various arms of Moels, repainted in 1727 as a date shows. Pevsner states Swimbridge Church itself to have been "mostly rebuilt in the 15th and 16th centuries".

Jack Russell Terrier

The parish was the home of the Rev. John "Jack" Russell, Vicar of Swimbridge and Rector of

Black Torrington Black Torrington is a village and civil parish in mid Devon, England, situated between the towns of Holsworthy and Hatherleigh. It is located on and named after the River Torridge. Within the village is a small but well maintained 15th-centu ...

, who first bred the

. Russell is said to have brought his first terrier, Trump, whilst he was studying at Oxford University and then bred from her to eventually originate the Jack Russell strain of terrier. John Russell died in 1883 and was buried in the graveyard of St. James's Church; the village pub is named after him and in 2018 displays one of his terriers on the pub sign.

Railway

From 1873 to 1966, Swimbridge had a station on the

Devon and Somerset Railway The Devon and Somerset Railway (D&SR) was a cross-country line that connected Barnstaple in Devon, England, to the network of the Bristol and Exeter Railway (B&ER) near Taunton. It was opened in stages between 1871 and 1873 and closed in 1966. ...

, which became part of 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 ...

and which ran from

Taunton Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the ...

. The alignment of the railway line through Swimbridge station is now part of the North Devon Link Road.

Industry

Leather Tanning Tanning is the process of treating skins and hides of animals to produce leather. A tannery is the place where the skins are processed. Tanning hide into leather involves a process which permanently alters the protein structure of skin, makin ...

was a major local industry until 1965.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Devon