Kenn
Kenn is located within Teignbridge local authority area. Historically it formed part of Exminster Hundred. It falls within Kenn 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 818 in 1801 781 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 223 adult males signed the Protestation returns. It is recorded as a borough from 1300. The medieval borough was located at Kennford. A market is recorded from 14 cent..
A parish history file is held in Dawlish 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 Kenn 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 92/10 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 92SW
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX920855. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX98NW, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 031, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 192. Geological sheet 339 also covers the area.
Illustrations: The image below is of Kenn as included in the Library's illustrations collection. Other images can be searched for on the local studies catalogue.
A fair is known from: 14 cent.. An extract from The glove is up! Devon's historic fairs, by Tricia Gerrish, is reproduced by kind permission of the author.
KENN/KENNFORD LOCATION:Off A38 just South of Exeter
ORIGINAL CHARTER:1299. Granted to Hugh de Courtenay (Earl of Devon), for 2 Days at the Feast of St Mary Magdalen (22nd July).
In 1299 the Courtenay family received a charter for a two day fair at the feast of St Mary Magdalen (22nd July). This is recorded in White's 1890 Directory of Devon as 'obsolete some centuries'. However, a press report in 1995 mentions Kenn's Charter Fair on and around 8th August, so it must have been revived. A week of fun included ferret races at the 'Squire's Evening'.
*see also KENTON
Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:
KENN is a luxuriantly fertile )arish on a deep red soil, with fine timber everywhere. The parish has or lad a number of good parks and houses notably Haldon, Trehill, Bickham, md Woodlands. Haldon House, uperbly sited against the background of the wooded hills, was one of the most notable country houses in Devon (Plate 14). It was begun c. 1735 by Sir George Chudleigh, the 4th bart., upon a new site, and completed after his death in 1738. About 1770 it was purchased by Robert PaTh who had made a fortune in India. He greatly enlarged the fine timbered park. The Palks (later Lords Haldon) lived here until 1892. The house is now mostly demolished, the small remains occupied as flats.
The Belvedere, on one of the highest points of Haldon, was erected about 1780 by Sir Robert Palk in memory of his great friend Stringer Lawrence, who had been Governor of Madras. Haldon Belvedere, as it is always called, is a landmark over a great part of Devon, and commands magnificent views. Trehill (early 19th century) is on the site of an older house. Bickham was the seat of the Shorts from Elizabethan days until recently.
The church (St. Andrew), beautifully situated and built of a deep-red sandstone from the Trehill quarry, is an interesting building. It is essentially an early 14th century structure, enlarged and given new windows late in the 15th. There are early 15th century bench-ends, and a Purbeck marble font (early 13th century). The rood-screen, extending the entire width of the church, is the usual 15th century type. In 1889 the rood and its figures (carved at aber Ammergau) were added, the first rood to be restored in Devon since the Reformation. The paintings of saints in the lower panels, done about 1500, form a singularly interesting series in their selection and arrangement: the male saints are all to the north of the central doorway, the female saints to the south: the only example in Devon of this correct arrangement. Notice also the canopy above the rood. There is a mural monument to Richard Waltham of Trehill (d. 1637), one-time recorder of Exeter.
