Broadhempston community page (original) (raw)

Broadhempston is located within Teignbridge local authority area. Historically it formed part of Haytor Hundred. It falls within Totnes Deanery for ecclesiastical purposes. The Deaneries are used to arrange the typescript Church Notes of B.F.Cresswell which are held in the Westcountry Studies Library. The population was 667 in 1801 441 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 225 adult males signed the Protestation returns.

A parish history file is held in Totnes Library. You can look for other material on the community by using the place search on the main local studies database. Further historical information is also available on theGenuki website.

Maps: The image below is of the Broadhempston area on Donn's one inch to the mile survey of 1765.

On the County Series Ordnance Survey mapping the area is to be found on 1:2,500 sheet 115/9 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 115SW
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX806663. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX86NW, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 031, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 202. Geological sheet 350 also covers the area.

Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:

BROADHEMPSTON is a pleasant village with a fine church (St. Peter and St. Paul), which was rebuilt in 1401-03 except the tower and chancel {both c. 1300). The splendid late medieval rood-screen, formerly much mutilated and decayed, was restored by Herbert Read of Exeter in 1901-2.

Beaston was one of the "mansions" of the Rowes for 250 years, and the present farmhouse contains remains of the old building. Broadhempston is one of the small number of parishes to possess pre-Reformation churchwardens' accounts, beginning in 1519.