Brentor
Brentor is located within West Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Tavistock Hundred. It falls within Tavistock 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 108 in 1801 105 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website.In 1641/2 36 adult males signed the Protestation returns.
A parish history file is held in Tavistock 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
Maps: The image below is of the Brentor 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 97/7 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 97NE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX471804. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX48SE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 112, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 201. Geological sheet 337 also covers the area.
Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:
BRENTOR takes its name from the isolated conical rock, the remnant of a volcano, on the summit of which the parish church stands alone. The tor (1,130 ft.) is a striking landmark all over W. Devon; from its summit magnificent views are to be had, extending far over Devon and Cornwall. The church (St. Michael) was first built here c.1140 by Robert Giffard at his own cost. (E.H.R. 62 (1947), 357.) It was known in the 12th and 13th centuries. As " St. Michael of the Rock "-"a church, full bleak, and weather beaten," says Risdon, "all alone, as it were forsaken, whose church yard doth hardly afford depth of earth to bury the dead; yet doubtless they rest there as securely as in sumptuous St. Peters, until the day of doom."
The small church consists of nave and chancel only, with a low battlemented W. tower, built of volcanic stone quarried on the hill. The S. wall of rubble masonry is probably the original early 12th century work, the remainder early 13th century. The plain tower may have been added early in the 14th century, as bishop Stapeldon came to consecrate the church on 4 December 1319. Reginald Stapledon, 137.) In the following century the tower was raised and the battlements added. The church was restored 1889- 90.
An earthwork of unknown purpose and date runs around the hill well below the summit, in the form of a massive, stone-faced bank. On 15 June 1232 Henry III granted to the abbot of Tavistock a three-day fair annually on the vigil, feast, and morrow of St. Michael (28-30 September) at the church of Brentor (D.A. 46 (1914), 235.) The manor belonged to Tavi- stock Abbey until the Dissolution and was then granted to John, Lord Russell, as part of his vast spoils from the Tavistock estates.
