Horwood
Horwood is located within North Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Fremington Hundred. It falls within Barnstaple 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 103 in 1801 102 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 24 adult males signed the Protestation returns.
A parish history file is held in Bideford 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 Horwood 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 19/4 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 19NE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SS504277. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SS52NW, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 241, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 180. Geological sheet 293 also covers the area.
Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:
HORWOOD The church (St. Michael) is beautifully situated, commanding fine views of the Taw and Torridge estuary. It is a delightful little building, mostlyc. 1500 in date. An excellent N. arcade of five bays leads into the Pollard aisle. An inscription which formerly existed in one of the windows showed that the original aisle was built by John Pollard and his wife Emma, daughter and co-heir of John Doddescombe, probably c. 1400. The beautiful alabaster effigy in this aisle of a lady with a mitred or horned headdress, and a rich robe in which three figures of children are enfolded, is said to be that of Emma Pollard.
The furniture of the church is interesting: a number of excellent carved bench-ends in the nave (early 16th century); some plain bench-ends in the Pollard aisle which may well be older; a good pulpit (1635) and altar rails (17th century). Some ancient glass remains in the E. window of the Pollard aisle, and a considerable number of late medieval tiles in the floor.
