Cullompton
Cullompton is located within Mid Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Hayridge Hundred. It falls within Cullompton 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 3138 in 1801 2922 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In the valuation of 1334 it was assessed at £03/05/04. The lay subsidy of 1524 valued the community at £59/17/06. In 1641/2 725 adult males signed the Protestation returns. It is recorded as a borough from 1640. A turnpike was established in 1813. The community had a grammar school from 1632. There was also a 14th century market at Langford. A market is recorded from 14c.-1822.
A parish history file is held in Cullompton 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 Cullompton 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 57/2 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 57NW
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is ST020070. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet ST00NW, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 030, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 192. Geological sheet 310 also covers the area.
Illustrations: The image below is of Cullompton (SC0434) as included in the Library's illustrations catalogue. Other images can be searched for on the local studies catalogue.
A fair is known from: 14c.-1822. [It is intended to include the local section from The glove is up! Devon's historic fairs, by Tricia Gerrish, by kind permission of the author].
Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:
CULLOMPTON is a cheerful little market town, mostly consisting of one main street with "courts" running off it. There are a few late Tudor buildings, most notable of which are The Walronds, begun by Sir John Petre in 1603 and completed in 1605, containing fine carved mantelpieces and moulded plaster ceilings of the period; and the Manor House (not so called until 1850) which is Elizabethan, enlarged c. 1718. In the main, however, it is an undistinguished 19th century town, the product of frequent fires and rebuildings. The Great Fire of 1839 destroyed 264 houses, and necessitated much commonplace rebuilding.
Cullompton was one of the most important woollen manufacturing towns in Devon from the 16th century to the 18th, its greatest merchant, John Lane (d. 1529), being a contemporary of John Greenway of Tiverton. They rivalled each other in the magnificence of their additions to their respective parish churches. Although the woollen industry decayed, the parish still kept several large paper and corn mills, which carried on actively throughout the 19th century.
The parish church (St. Andrew) is one of the grandest in Devon (plate 48). It was a collegiate church before the Conquest. William I presented the five prebends to Battle Abbey in Sussex, but at some early date the prebendal system was dropped. The present building is 15th early 16th century in date. The body of the church is c. 1450; the aisles were added c. 1500, the second S. aisle (Lane's) in 1526; and the majestic tower (in the Somerset style) 1545-9, (Oliver, Eccl. Antiquities, i, 109.) The church was restored in 1849 when the chancel was rebuilt and the chancel roof recoloured. A superb roof runs the whole length of the church: a panelled wagon roof of 24 bays, richly coloured, moulded, and carved. The 15th century rood-screen extends the entire width of the church, of ordinary character but striking because of its great length and perfect condition. A Golgotha, or Calvary, which originally stood on the rood-loft, now lies at the W. end of Lane's Aisle, a gruesome piece of medieval carving. In Lane's Aisle the fan-traceried roof should be noticed, and the exterior carvings of merchants' ships, shears, and other symbols of the cloth trade. The pillars and capitals of the nave also call for study. At the W. end of the church is a massive Jacobean gallery.
