Chulmleigh
Chulmleigh 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 1333 in 1801 1158 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. The lay subsidy of 1524 valued the community at £18/04/02. In 1641/2 264 adult males signed the Protestation returns. It is recorded as a borough from 1274. A market is recorded from 14c.-1822.
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 Chulmleigh 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 42/4 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 42NE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SS687142. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SS61SE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 127, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 180. Geological sheet 309 also covers the area.
Illustrations: The image below is of Chulmleigh as included in the Library's illustrations collection. Other images can be searched for on the local studies catalogue.
A fair is known from: 14c.-1935. Extract from The glove is up! Devon's historic fairs, by Tricia Gerrish, by kind permission of the author].
CHULMLEIGH FAIR. LOCATION: Mid Devon, on B3096 near Tiverton and Crediton.
ORIGINAL CHARTER: c.1253 Charter granted by Henry III to John de Courtenay at Bordeaux. Two fairs: the feast of St Mary Magdalen (22nd July) for 4 days and Wednesday of Easter week.
A GLOVE FAIR
Henry III's charter, granted to John de Courtenay ,Earl of Devon at Bordeaux in about 1253 follows evidence of two Chulmleigh fairs in 1242. In ancient Rolls of the day, the following appears (in translation): 'they shall have one fair there for four days, namely on the eve and on the day of Saint Mary Magdalen, and on the two days following.' The later charter date seems to have been generally accepted, as the fair celebrated its 700th anniversary in 1953. Its July fair has survived, known either as Lammas Fair, or more recently as Chulmleigh Old Fair.
After the calendar changed, Lammas Fair was moved to the last Wednesday in July and two days following. This is confirmed by Magna Britannia, Owen's New Book of Fairs and Kellys Directory for 1889. Owen adds another fair, held on the 3rd Friday in March for cattle sales. There may have been a break in holding the fair during the 1960s and 1970s, which is confirmed by its absence from a list of Devon charter fairs made in the early 1960s. Reports of Chulmleigh Old Fair appear again in newspapers from 1980. However, its organisers claim there has been no gap in the 750 year history of their fair (2003).
Chulmleigh Fair was primarily for cattle and sheep, but reports suggest a pleasure element early in its existence. Sheep and cattle sales still featured in the 1930s, 1950s and 1980s. 1200 ewes and lambs and 40 cattle were sold in 1936, in a wide roadway between the church and local school. In 1953, at the fair's 700th anniversary, 430 lambs, 900 ewes and 125 cattle changed hands. Before 1956, animals were penned beneath the church wall: thereafter Chulmleigh Old Fair took place in fields near the church.
Chulmleigh was a glove fair. The stuffed white glove, garlanded with flowers, was hoisted from Market Hall (later from the town hall) following the fair's proclamation. An interesting story claims that Chulmleigh's original white gauntlet glove was sent by Henry III himself. Although he had encouraged fairs by granting charters, his followers were known for visiting towns and villages overturning stalls, stealing livestock and generally terrifying the populace. Henry sent the white glove in response to their appeals, as an assurance. As long as it was on display, his men would know they would be punished for any drunken misdemeanours.
The glove has been reinstated to publicise Chulmleigh Old Fair; in the mid 1990s a pair of white gloves were hoisted on either side of the A377, at the nearest turn-off. Unfortunately, a passer-by with a sense of the ridiculous had bent the wire frames inside the gloves to give a two-fingered salute! A scramble for money by children became part of the opening ceremony, and this has survived. Chulmleigh held a Court Leet, which was not originally part of its Lammas Fair, but which was revived in 1936 to enhance the July festivities.
Wednesday was the traditional day for cattle and sheep sales, with a pleasure fair to follow. In 1935, the pleasure fair opened with dancing, led by the 'old folk', and ended
with free rides for them. In the following year, sweets were added to pennies for throwing; on Thursday sports took place, followed by clay pigeon shooting on Friday. An extra day was added for 'olde worlde' sports, which included pillow fights, a greasy pole and racing round the houses. The Western Times recorded that: ‘the curtain will ring down to the strains of Mr F E Lovell's concertina’. He played for dancing in Fore Street to end the festivities.
The 150 newly minted pennies for 1938's fair were given by Mr Skinner, one of Chulmleigh's oldest residents, who gave a speech at the opening ceremony: a part of Chumleigh tradition traceable for at least 100 years. A resident (or residents) who worked hard for the local community was deemed worthy to open Chulmleigh Old Fair. For the past 50 years, those so honoured have crowned a Fair Queen, Princesses and Heralds – all voted into office by secret ballot in which Chulmleigh’s adults and children participated.
Chulmleigh Old Fair took on a carnival atmosphere, with the royal party attending Evensong at the parish church before being led, with music and marching through Fore Street to a white glove ceremony and the money scramble at the Town Hall. In 1990 it is reported that the money was flung from a local Accountant's window. In addition to Wednesday's cattle and sheep sales, there was also a flower show. Morris dancers from Barnstaple, a motor scavenger hunt and clay pigeon shooting entertained visitors until Saturday, when the by now famous pillow fights took place and a carnival procession drew the activities to a close. In 1981, the fair started a further day earlier, on Monday 27th July, due to the rival attraction of Prince Charles & Lady Diana Spencer's wedding.
From its original three or four days of celebration, Chulmleigh Old/Lammas Fair now runs for six. Today’s sheep show (remnant of the old cattle and sheep fair) takes place on Wednesday, with a country market in streets pedestrianised for the occasion. These follow Tuesday evening’s service and opening procession, crowning and proclamation, and street events including a three-legged race between public houses. Activities during the week even encompass a gymkana on bikes. In 2001, due to foot-and-mouth disease having earlier devastated Devon’s farming community, the fair went ahead, for the first time ever, minus a sheep show or indeed animals of any description. They returned in 2002!
Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:
CHULMLEIGH is a small decayed market-town, boldly situated on the top of a hill rising from the Little Dart River. It belonged to Baldwin the sheriff in 1086, passed to the Courtenays as part of the great honour of Okehampton before 1194, and remained in their hands until the attainder of Henry, Marquess of Exeter, in 1539.
Chulmleigh was made a borough by the Courtenays about 1253. It was a prosperous place throughout the 17th and 18th centuries., with a woollen industry, a good market, and three cattle fairs. It also stood on the main road from Exeter to Barnstaple and shared in the road traffic. The Barnstaple Inn is dated 1633, and there is much other decent old building in the town. The woollen industry had practically gone by 1800, but the cattle fairs, markets and road traffic kept the town relatively prosperous until about 1850. Since then it has hardly moved. The causes of the decline were the making of the new turnpike road along the Taw valley (c. 1830) which took away a good deal of the wagon traffic from the old hill-road through the town, and the opening of the North Devon railway in 1854 along the same valley, which led to the setting up of new sheep and cattle markets at Eggesford and South Molton Road stations.
The parish church (St. Mary Magdalen) was formerly a collegiate church, with seven prebends founded at an un- known date. It was entirely rebuilt in the 15th cent., and has a very fine W. tower, restored in 1881. The interior is spacious, with lofty nave arcades and good wagon roofs with carved bosses and angels on the wall-plates. The chancel was rebuilt, and four memorial windows inserted, in 1860. A fine rood- screen, in perfect condition, with its vaulting and cornices complete, extends across nave and aisles.
In the surrounding parish are a number of interesting houses. Stone Barton, in beautiful remote country 2 m. E. of the town, has substantial remains of an earthwork on a promontory above the farm. There is said to have been a castle here, and in Westcote's day a ruined heap of stones could be seen. It may have been a small Iron Age hill-fort adapted later to an early medieval castle or fortified house.
Garland, a remote farm in the N. of the parish, was the birthplace of John Garland, grammarian, poet, and alchemist, who studied at Oxford and Paris, was professor at Toulouse University 1229-31, and wrote treatises on grammar, minerals, counterpoint, and plain-song.
Colleton Barton is architecturally the most interesting and attractive house in the parish. The present house was built largely by Humphrey Bury about 1612. This date appears in the dining- room. The gatehouse, with the chapel above it, remains from the medieval house. The chapel, dedicated to St. Edmund the Bishop, was first licensed in 1381. This is the period of the gate-house, which probably gave access to a quadrangle round which the medieval house lay. The present house is E- shaped, the W. wing containing the Hall and drawing-room. There are fine decorated plaster ceilings of early I 7th century date in the Hall, drawing-room and dining-room. The drawing-room is panelled with carved oak, adorned with the coats-of-arms of the Burys and allied families.
