Axmouth community page (original) (raw)

Axmouth is located within East Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Axminster Hundred. It falls within Honiton Vol 1 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 375 in 1801 643 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website.In 1641/2 116 adult males signed the Protestation returns.

A parish history file is held in Seaton 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 Axmouth 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 83/12 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 83SE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SY258911. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SY29SE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 029, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 192. Geological sheet 326 also covers the area.

Illustrations: The image below is of Axmouth as included in the Library's Etched on Devon's memory website. Other images can be searched for on the local studies catalogue.

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

AXMOUTH One could spend a pleasurable week of exploration in and around this delectable little place, which always looks so inviting at any time of the year across the emerald marshes of the River Axe. The estuary of the Axe was formerly much wider than it is to-day, probably half a mile across, and extended considerably farther southward than the present coastline.

The hill-fort of Hawksdown dominates this estuary and a vast area beyond: the views up here are superb. It probably dates from the late pre-Roman Iron Age.

In Roman times, Axmouth appears to have been the southern terminus of the Fosse Way. In the Saxon occupation of the 7th century, it was one of the earliest villages to be founded. It belonged to King Athelstan, later to Edward the Confessor, and then to William I. It was also the centre of an early hundred, proof again of its antiquity and importance. By Leland's time the mouth of the Axe was almost barred by the high pebble ridge which forces the river through a narrow outlet on the E. side. Attempts to reconstruct the harbour from the Seaton side were made in the 1st century, but came to nothing. At the end of the 16th century the Earles tried to remake the harbour from the Axmouth side. For some reason this project also failed. Early in the 19th century, several farmers of Axmouth and the neighbouring parishes attempted to dig out the ruins of the ancient harbour. A pier was built about 1803, behind which vessels of 100 tons could unload, and up to 1868, when the railway came, two vessels traded regularly between Axmouth and London. Other vessels also used the harbour. The railway killed this trade, the harbour was allowed to decay again, and a considerable part of the pier was swept away in a gale on Sunday, 31 January 1869.

Leland speaks of Axmouth as "an old and bigge Fischar Toune." It was much larger then than to-day, as is proved by the foundations of houses unearthed over a wide area.(Pulman, Book of the Axe, 869-70) By 1800, it had shrunk to fewer than 400 people. In 1871 its population had risen to 702, but since then it has been stationary or gently declining. The present village is most attractive, with a number of excellent farmhouses and cottages of 16th to 19th century date. Two or three are notable examples of Elizabethan domestic building. Axmouth is worth careful exploration, and is indeed one of the most unspoilt and delightful villages in Devon. To the N. of the village, Stedcombe is a good William and Mary house (169S), rebuilt near the site of the older house which was garrisoned for Parliament by Sir Walter ErIe and destroyed by the Royalists in 1644. Bindon, E. of the village, is a former manor house, mostly 16th century in date, with some earlier remains. The private chapel, still to be seen in the house, was licensed by Bishop Lacy in 1425. (An essay on Axmouth and Bindon will be found in Rogers, Memorials of the West.)

Axmouth church (St. Michael) is structurally much more interesting than most Devonshire churches, containing work of almost every period from the Norman to the Victorian. There are substantial remains of the Norman church (c. 1150); a narrow S. aisle was added early in the 13th century, and further alterations made a hundred years later. At the end of the 15th century the fine W. tower was built, possibly replacing a Norman tower at the E. end of the S. aisle. In the chancel is the effigy of a 14th century priest, fully vested in alb, stole, and chasuble. There are memorials to the ErIes of Bind on, and a good 18th century mural monument to Hallett of Stedcombe (1749). The church was restored by Hayward of Exeter in 1889, who produced the beastly Victorian font.

Axmouth lies in the chalk country of Devon, and has some spectacular coastal scenery. At Dowlands farm, the great landslip of Christmas 1839 may be seen: a chasam three-quarters of a mile long, 300 feet wide, and a 150 feet deep, formed when 8, 000, 000 tons of earth crashed in one night. The view from the E. end is particularly fine.

Besides Axmouth and Stedcombe, Bruckland and Charton existed as separate estates before the Norman Conquest. Bindon, though not separately mentioned until 1238, was a part of Axmouth manor in pre-Conquest times.