Farway
Farway is located within East Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Colyton Hundred. It falls within Honiton 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 287 in 1801 233 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. The lay subsidy of 1524 valued the community at £06/10/08.
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 Farway 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 70/12 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 70SE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SY183957. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SY19NE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 030, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 192. Geological sheet 326 also covers the area.
Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:
FARWAY lies deep in the warm marly combes below the greensand plateau, which rises to over 800 ft. at Farway Hill. On the plateau is a large group of barrows, covering an extensive area, the most important Middle Bronze Age necropolis in Devon outside Dartmoor. Across the plateau runs an ancient ridgeway, followed by parish boundaries for miles, which is probably the faer-weg (" frequented road ") from which the parish takes its name.
Farway church (St. Michael) is attractively sited. It seems to have been a Norman church, much enlarged and altered in the early 14th century, with a W. tower added in the 15th century, the N. aisle in 1628, and the whole unfortunately Victorianised in 1877. The N. arcade has massive early Norman piers with scalloped caps. There is a good Elizabethan altar-table, and a monument in the N. aisle, with two recumbent effigies, to Sir Edmund Prideaux, Bt. (1554-1629). Below the effigy of Sir Edmund, in his lawyer's robes, is another effigy of a man in armour, possibly his grandson Edmund Prideaux ( 1618-43).
Netherton Hall was built in 1607 by Sir Edmund Prideaux, who bought the manor of Netherton, which had formerly belonged to Canonsleigh priory. "Boycombe" is a 16th century "mansion", almost unaltered except for the demolition of one wing.
