Germansweek
Germansweek is located within West Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Lifton Hundred. It falls within Okehampton 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 133 in 1801 204 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 61 adult males signed the Protestation returns.
A parish history file is held in Okehampton & Holsworthy 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 Germansweek 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 75/6 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 75NW
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX439942. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX49SW, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 112, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 190. Geological sheet 323 also covers the area.
Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:
GERMANSWEEK lies in the heart of a large unknown tract of clay country, the pastoral nature of which is indicated as far back as the 11th century by the frequency of wick (i.e. dairy- farm) in its Domesday place-names. There were two Domesday manors called Wick in this parish, one now Germansweek (from the dedication of the church to St. Germanus of Auxerre) and the other now Southweek. The small village is on a hill rising steeply from the Wolf valley.
The church was drastically restored in the 1870s and is of little interest. The Seccombes have owned and farmed Seccombe since the 13th century.
