Dunkeswell
Dunkeswell is located within East Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Hemyock Hundred. It falls within Hontiton Vol 1 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 393 in 1801 288 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 86 adult males signed the Protestation returns.
A parish history file is held in Honiton 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 Dunkeswell 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 58/3 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 58NE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is ST141078. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet ST10NW, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 030, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 192. Geological sheet 311 also covers the area.
Illustrations: The image below is of Dunkeswell as included in the Library's illustrations collection Other images can be searched for on the local studies catalogue.
Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:
DUNKESWELL lies on the Blackdown plateau, nearly 800 ft. up. The church (St. Nicholas) was rebuilt in 186S-8 and is wholly uninteresting except for the primitive Norman font, which has one of the earliest English representations of an elephant. About 2 m. N. of the church are the small remains of the Cistercian abbey of Dunkeswell, founded in 1201 by William Brewer and colonised from Ford. The foundations of the building may be traced, but the only fragment above ground is a part of the gatehouse, and a flint rubble wall. Holy Trinity church, erected in 1842 by Mrs. Simcoe, occupies part of the site of the abbey. It is a plain building, not entirely without merit. The wood carving and the painting of the glass were done by the seven daughters of Mrs. Simcoe.
