Whitchurch is a suburban 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

to the south-east of the town of

Tavistock Tavistock ( ) is an ancient stannary and market town and civil parish in the West Devon district, in the county of Devon, England. It is situated on the River Tavy, from which its name derives. At the 2011 census, the three electoral wards (N ...

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

, England. It lies in the

West Devon West Devon is a local government district with borough status in Devon, England. Its council is based in Tavistock, the borough's largest town. The borough also includes the towns of Hatherleigh, North Tawton and Okehampton, along with nume ...

local authority area, and within Tavistock

Deanery A deanery (or decanate) is an ecclesiastical entity in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and the Church of Norway. A deanery is either the jurisdiction or residence of ...

for ecclesiastical purposes. The village itself is no longer in the civil parish, having been absorbed into Tavistock in 1930, leaving the parish of Whitchurch just covering the rural areas south-east of the town. Historically, Whitchurch formed part of the

Roborough Hundred The hundred of Roborough was the name of one of thirty-two ancient administrative units of Devon, England. It was named after an ancient location of its hundred court in Roborough, South Hams, near Plymouth Plymouth ( ) is a port city sta ...

History

It is believed that a church must have been present in Whitchurch as early as the 11th century, and that it was most likely built from the white

elvan Elvan is a name used in Cornwall and Devon for the native varieties of quartz-porphyry. They are dispersed irregularly in the Devonian series of rocks and some of them make very fine building stones (e.g. Pentewan stone, Polyphant stone and Cat ...

that can be found at Roborough Down only a few miles away. This may be the derivation of the name of the village ("White-church"), though many other English villages bearing the same name are considered to be thus named simply because their churches were either built of stone, or were whitewashed. The main church currently standing in Whitchurch—St. Andrew—is for the most part a 15th-century building made from

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

as well as elvan. Many memorials can be found in the church, including a monument to Francis Pengelly (1722) made by John Weston of Exeter showing a "celestial ballet" on a medallion, and also an early 17th-century slate slab to the Mooringes of Moortown. There are several interesting houses within the parish. Walreddon Manor is a Grade I listed country house built in the reign of Edward VI by the Courtenay family. The 17th century heiress Mary Fitz (widow of

Sir Richard Grenville Sir Richard Grenville ( – ), also spelt Greynvile, Greeneville, and Greenfield, was an English privateer and explorer. Grenville was lord of the manors of Stowe, Cornwall and Bideford, Devon. He subsequently participated in the planta ...

) was born there. On her death in 1671, the manor was inherited by her cousin, Sir William Courtenay. It stayed in ownership of the Courtenay family until 1953. In the late 1800s, the manor was let to the explorer and colonial administrator

Edward John Eyre Edward John Eyre (5 August 181530 November 1901) was an English land explorer of the Australian continent, colonial administrator, Lieutenant-Governor of New Zealand's New Munster province, and Governor of Jamaica. Early life Eyre was born in ...

. Later residents include the film director

Hugh Hudson Hugh Hudson (25 August 1936 – 10 February 2023) was an English film director. He was among a generation of British directors who would begin their career making documentaries and television commercials before going on to have success in film ...

, and, since 2001, the Conservative MP

Zac Goldsmith Frank Zacharias Robin Goldsmith, Baron Goldsmith of Richmond Park, (born 20 January 1975) is a British politician, life peer and journalist who served as Minister of State for Overseas Territories, Commonwealth, Energy, Climate and Environmen ...

. The so-called Priory, near the church, is a 19th-century granite building incorporating a square 4th century entrance tower from an earlier structure.

Governance

There are three tiers of local government for the civil parish of Whitchurch, at parish, district and county level: Plasterdown Grouped Parish Council,

West Devon Borough Council West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...

and

Devon County Council Devon County Council is the county council administering the English county of Devon. The council is based at Devon County Hall in the city of Exeter. The area administered by the county council is termed the non-metropolitan county, which is ...

. The parish council is a grouped parish council covering the two civil parishes of Whitchurch and

Sampford Spiney Sampford Spiney is a village and civil parish in the Walkham valley, about 4 miles east south east of Tavistock, in the West Devon district, in the county of Devon, England. In 2011 the parish had a population of 117. The parish includes the ha ...

. Whitchurch was an

ancient 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

. The village of Whitchurch was transferred into the

urban district An urban district is a division generally managed by a local government. It may also refer to a city district, district, urban area or quarter Specific urban districts in some countries include: * Urban districts of Denmark * Districts of Germa ...

of Tavistock in 1930, but it was not considered appropriate for the whole parish of Whitchurch to be included in an urban district. The residual rural parts of the parish were therefore not transferred to Tavistock and continued to form a parish called Whitchurch, despite no longer including the village after which it was named.

References

External links

Whitchurch Community Page
Villages in Devon Tavistock {{Devon-geo-stub