Ilsington
Ilsington is located within Teignbridge local authority area. Historically it formed part of Teignbridge Hundred. It falls within Moretonhampstead 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 866 in 1801 886 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 179 adult males signed the Protestation returns.
A parish history file is held in Newton Abbot 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 Ilsington 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 108/4 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 108NE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX785761. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX77NE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 031, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 191. Geological sheet 339 also covers the area.
Illustrations: The image below is of Ilsington 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:
ILSINGTON is a large 'parish extending into the E. uplands of Dartmoor. It takes in Rippon Tqr (1,564 ft.), Saddle Tor, and Hay Tor (1,490 ft.), and extends E. to the Bovey heathcountry. The Hay Tor granite quarries are in this parish, and a good deal of the old Hay Tor railway (see ch. VIII). Bagtor, Ingsdon, Sigford and Staple- hill, were all small Domesday manors. Bagtor developed into a "mansion" and became the seat of John Ford in Henry VIII's time. John Ford, the dramatist, was born here and baptized in Ilsington church on 12 April 1586. The present house is apparently late 17th early 18th century, but beside it is a good specimen of a 16th century moorland farmhouse, with granite outbuildings, which may well be the Elizabethan house in which the dramatist was born.
Ilsington church (St. Michael) is an early 14th century cruciform church, so commonly found in this part of Devon, enlarged in the late 15th century into a fully-aisled plan. Ashburton, Holne, and Widecombe show the same development in this district. At West Ogwell (q.v.), on the other hand, we find the original 14th century cross-plan unaltered. Ilsington also received new roofs in the 15th century reconstruction (note the carved bosses in the nave) and a richly carved rood-screen to nave and aisles. Some late detail on the screen suggests that it cannot be earlier than 1530.
