Cheldon
Cheldon is located within North Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Witheridge Hundred. It falls within Chulmleigh 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 91 in 1801 46 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 39 adult males signed the Protestation returns. See Histoic buildings listing under Chulmleigh.
A parish history file is held in Chulmleigh 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 Cheldon 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 43/6 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 43NW
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SS736135. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SS71SW, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 127, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 180. Geological sheet 309 also covers the area.
Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:
CHELDON is a tiny, lost parish above the wooded valley of the Little Dart. The church (St. Mary) is small and attractive, mostly a rustic 15th century building. The wagon roofs have some good bosses; there are 15th century carved bench-ends and an 18th century pulpit, altar-rails, and text-boards in the sanctuary. On either side of the chancel step are curious ironwork gates surmounted by crowns, dated 1737 and 1743, perhaps brought from elsewhere.
