Clawton
Clawton is located within Torridge local authority area. Historically it formed part of Black Torrington Hundred. It falls within Holsworthy 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 383 in 1801 389 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 112 adult males signed the Protestation returns.
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.
Maps: The image below is of the Clawton 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 62/10 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 62SW
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX353992. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX39NE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 112, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 190. Geological sheet 323 also covers the area.
Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:
CLAWTON lies in the cold yellow clay country, so heavy that even in Risdon's day it was a local saying that "The Devil was clogged in Clawmoor." The church (St. Leonard) is mainly an early 14th century building, somewhat altered in the early 16th century There is, however, a fine Norman font, and other 12th century work in the chancel. The chancel and aisle roofs retain many carved bosses. In the N. aisle is a mural monument to Sir Christopher Osmond of Fernhill, gent. (1631. Fernhill, Blagdon, and Kempthore, now farmhouses, were formerly mansions.
