Coldridge
Coldridge is located within Mid Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Winkleigh 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 697 in 1801 374 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 108 adult males signed the Protestation returns.
A parish history file is held in Okehampton & Crediton 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 Coldridge 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 53/4 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 53NE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SS697076. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SS60NE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 113, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 191. Geological sheet 309 also covers the area.
Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:
COLDRIDGE church and village stand on the summit of a high ridge and are visible for miles. The houses are gathered round an open "square," from which there are wide views across to Dartmoor.
The church (St. Mary) is very interesting. It is almost entirely early 15th and early 16th century, but there are distinct traces of Norman work inside. The special features of the church are (I) a good uncoloured 15th century rood-screen; (2) a carved oak 15th century pulpit; (3) some 15th-cent. glass, much smashed recently by wanton boys; (4) many late medieval tiles in the chancel and around the font; (5) some late medieval benches in the N. aisle; (6) some fine carved bench-ends in the S. aisle and S. chancel aisle, including the prayer-desk of Sir John Evans, probably all early 16th century; (7) a parclose screen dividing the Evans chantry from the chancel; (8) a fine table-tomb and recumbent effigy of Sir John Evans under a canopy in the N. aisle; (9) the wagon roofs of the N. and S. aisles, with many carved bosses; (10) the font, probably early 13th century; (II) the lofty and well- moulded arcades of elvan (not granite). The whole church is graceful and well proportioned, and has a good tower.
