Willand - Willand Old Village (geograph 3590044)

Willand 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 authorit ...

within the Local Government district of Mid Devon,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is about north of Exeter and north of

Cullompton Cullompton () is a town and civil parish in the district of Mid Devon and the county of Devon, England. It is north-east of Exeter and lies on the River Culm. In 2011 the parish as a whole had a population of 8,499 while the built-up area of ...

. In 1991 the population was 3750 although recently this has grown considerably. The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is ST037110. ''Willand'' is a major part of Lower Culm electoral ward. The ward population at the 2011 Census was 5,808. The parish is surrounded, clockwise from the north, by the parishes of

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 ...

Uffculme Uffculme (, ) is a village and civil parish located in the Mid Devon district, of Devon, England. Situated in the Blackdown Hills on the B3440, close to the M5 motorway and the Bristol–Exeter railway line, near Cullompton, Uffculme is on the ...

and

. Willand has probably had a settlement since the

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 mostl ...

but is first recorded in 1042 as having "belonged to Ethmar". It historically formed part of the

Hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...

. The church of St Mary the Virgin is medieval; it has a small tower and a chancel, nave and north aisle. The south porch has some decoration and there is a late medieval rood screen (probably c. 1400 in date and fairly simple in design). There is one pub, The Halfway House, and a country manor, situated next to Diggerland, called the Verbeer Manor. It has one primary school, Willand School, that has around 300 pupils. From Willand, pupils go to

Cullompton Community College Cullompton Community College is a coeducational foundation secondary school located in Cullompton in the county of Devon. First established in 1872, the school relocated to its current site in 1964, and became fully comprehensive in 1979. In De ...

Uffculme School Uffculme School is a mixed secondary school located in Uffculme in the English county of Devon. Previously a community school administered by Devon County Council, Uffculme School was converted to academy status on 1 September 2010. However t ...

, or to other secondary schools in the area. Willand has a football club, Willand Rovers F.C. who play at The Stan Robinson Stadium on Silver Street. Willand also has a Village Hall where a number of social activities take place such as Short Mat Bowls and Coffee Mornings. Alongside the Village Hall is Willand Tennis Club. The Bristol to Exeter railway line was completed in 1844 and a station, called Tiverton Road, was opened in Willand to serve the nearby town of Tiverton; this was renamed

Tiverton Junction railway station There are 22 disused railway stations in the between and , 12 of which have structures that can still be seen from passing trains. Most were closed in the 1960s but four of them, especially around , were replaced by stations on new sites. 13 s ...

when a branch line reached the town, and also became the junction for the

Culm Valley Light Railway The Culm Valley Light Railway was a standard gauge branch railway that operated in the English county of Devon. It ran for just under from Tiverton Junction station on the Bristol to Exeter line, through the Culm valley to Hemyock. It was int ...

in 1876. Both branch lines had closed by 1975, and the station closed in 1986 when Tiverton Parkway was opened. The

M5 motorway The M5 is a motorway in England linking the Midlands with the South West England, South West. It runs from junction 8 of the M6 motorway, M6 at West Bromwich near Birmingham to Exeter in Devon. Heading south-west, the M5 runs east of West Brom ...

bypasses the village; junctions are at Cullompton and Tiverton Parkway. Adjacent to the railway line there is a large poultry processing factory, part of the 2 Sisters Food Group, which purchased it from

Lloyd Maunder Lloyd Maunder are an Exeter, Devon based group of West Country retail butchers, a major producer of locally reared beef, pork and chicken products. History FJP Maunder established a meat processing facility at Witheridge, Devon in 1879. He opene ...

in 2008. A survey carried out in 2015–17 found that the location was subject to an annual uplift of 2 cm, the cause of which is unknown.

References

External links

{{Mid Devon Villages in Mid Devon District