Gidleigh
Gidleigh is located within West Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Wonford 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 125 in 1801 121 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 38 adult males signed the Protestation returns.
A parish history file is held in Okehampton 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 Gidleigh 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 89/4 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 89NE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX671884. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX68NE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Outdoor Leisure 28, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 191. Geological sheet 324 also covers the area.
Illustrations: The image below is of Gidleigh as included in the Library's illustrations catalogue. 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:
GIDLEIGH is a remote place on the edge of Dartmoor, not mentioned before the middle of the 12th century. The church (Holy Trinity) is a simple, granite building of the early 16th century, with ceiled roofs and plastered walls, a good rood-screen, and a modern pulpit and lectern in granite (1853). Some medieval glass remains in the S. aisle. Slight structural changes were made in the 17th century (cf. the nave windows) and it is possible that the tower was rebuilt then.
Close to the church are the remains of Gidleigh Castle, a fortified manor house c. 1300 in date. It is contemporary with the later work of Okehampton Castle, and may well be by the same mason. It is a small " keep " consisting of a cellar below, and a solar above, and probably had originally a low-pitched roof covered with lead.' (Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association. Vol. 57 (1925), 267-71.)
Berrydown Farm is an attractive 17th century farmhouse. Thule Farm is also interesting, modernised but not spoilt, and has the date 1566 carved on a beam in one of its rooms.' There are many hut-circles and other Bronze Age monuments on the high moors, especially on Buttern Hill.
