Sheepwash

Brambles Bed and Breakfast is 45 miles from Sheepwash in Devon.

Sheepwash is a village in Devon, sitting on the River Torridge. It can be found approximately 15 miles from Okehampton on the northern edge of Dartmoor.

Sheepwash is located within Torridge local authority area. Historically it formed part of Shebbear Hundred. It falls within Torrington 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 348 in 1801 326 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. The lay subsidy of 1524 valued the community at £01/14/06. In 1641/2 74 adult males signed the Protestation returns. It is recorded as a borough from 1230. A market is recorded from 14 centuary.

A parish history file is held in Holsworthy 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 the Genuki website. www.genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/Sheepwash

On the County Series Ordnance Survey mapping the area is to be found on 1:2,500 sheet 51/8 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 51NE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SS486063. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SS40NE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 112, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 191. Geological sheet 307 also covers the area.
A fair is known from: 14c.-1888. [It is intended to include the local section from The glove is up! Devon's historic fairs, by Tricia Gerrish, by kind permission of the author].

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

SHEEPWASH church (St. Lawrence) was rebuilt in 1880 and is dull. Newcourt Barton is a late 16th century house, remodelled in the early 18th century and later.

From the Genuki Site:
"SHEEPWASH, or Shipwash, formerly a market town, is a long village in the Torridge valley, 5 miles W.N.W. of Hatherleigh. Its parish contains 497 souls, and 1771 acres of land, including 182A. of woodland and 391A. of common. A market was held here every Monday, till the latter end of last century; and here are still two annual fairs, on the second Thursday in March, and the first Thursday in October. The two market houses, after being long neglected and dilapidated, were converted into dwellings some years ago. Several houses in the town were destroyed by fire in 1743. Lord Clinton is lord of the manor, formerly held by the Avenel, Metstead, Holland, and other families. Upcot Avenel is the pleasant seat of G.L. Coham, Esq., and was formerly the property of the Hortons and Thornes. The Church (St. Lawrence,) is a small antique structure, with a low tower and one bell; and the benefice is a curacy, annexed to the vicarage of Shebbear. ... The Baptists and Bible Christians have chapels here." [From White's Devonshire Directory (1850)]

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