Cruyws Morchard
Cruwys Morchard is located within Mid Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Witheridge Hundred. It falls within Tiverton 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 556 in 1801 523 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 135 adult males signed the Protestation returns.
A parish history file is held in Tiverton 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 Cruwys Morchard 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 44/8 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 44NE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SS874122. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SS81SE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 114, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 181. Geological sheet 310 also covers the area.
Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:
CRUWYS MORCHARD lies high, in the unspoilt and unknown country W. of Tiverton. There is no village, the centre of the parish being the church and the manor house. The church (Holy Cross) is an attractive little building, of various dates. It is substantially an early 14th century structure, the two lower stages of the W. tower and the chancel being of this date, and probably the nave also, with a S. aisle added in the early 16th century The top stage of the tower was rebuilt in brick after the disastrous fire of 1689 which gutted the church. The interior of the church is most pleasing: plastered, decent Georgian, with a remarkable chancel screen and S. parclose screen of Corinthian design, well carved and well kept. The chancel fittings are of exceptional interest as showing the continuity of traditional forms, the stalls running to the E. wall to inclose the communion rails, and returning on the other side in the ancient manner. The screen is early 18th century in date.
Beside the church is Cruwys Morchard House, the seat of the Cruwys family since the reign of John and possibly a little earlier. They died out in the male line in 1804, but George Sharland married Harriet Cruwys the heiress, and his son took his mother':; name by royal licence in 1831, so that the name of Cruwys continues at Cruwys Morchard. The house is a plain and modest Georgian to look at, but it stands upon an ancient site and incorporates much old work. One wing of the house may be medieval in plan, and the present hall is probably disguised Tudor. The present kitchen has a fine panelled roof of moulded oak timbers, c. 1500 in date or slightly earlier, and may have been the solar of the medieval house. The house and park are highly "atmospheric," as characteristic as anything in Devon of the homes of the ancient squirearchy, the true deep-rooted squires who never made a fortune in law or in trade, and never produced anybody of note in Church or State. The farms of Hill, Ruckham, and Yedbury were all Domesday manors.
