Kings Nympton
Kings Nympton is located within North Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Witheridge Hundred. It falls within South Molton 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 510 in 1801 502 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 155 adult males signed the Protestation returns.
A parish history file is held in Chulmleigh 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 Kings Nympton 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 31/8 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 31NE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SS683194. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SS61NE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 127, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 180. Geological sheet 309 also covers the area.
Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:
KING'S NYMPTON is a large village on the hills E. of the Taw valley. Nemeton is a sacred or consecrated place or grove. There can be little doubt that among the earliest places of Celtic worship were groves, some of which remained sacred after Christian churches were built. In these groves would have stood symbols or images of the Celtic gods and an altar. Caesar speaks of the "consecrated place" where the Druids met yearly. The Old Irish word nemed means "sacred grove." (MacCulloch, The Celtic and Scandinavian Religions, 63,3)
King's Nympton church (St. James) is mainly a 15th century building, with a massive W. tower that may be older. All the roofs, including that of the porch, have remarkable carved bosses, portraying foliage and heads of men and women. The men are all grotesque and have mouth-foliage. The fittings of the church are interesting, most notable being a perfect rood-screen of unusual design, with tracery of the Exe Valley" type, and fan-vaulting and cornices similar to those at Hartland and Burrington. The roof above the screen has a painted canopy of honour to the rood, similar to that at Lapford. There are box-pews, Jacobean altar-rails, and an 18th century painted ceiling to the chancel, the latter a memorial to the Southcomb family.
King's Nympton Park was first enclosed by Sir Lewis Pollard, the judge (c. 1465-1540), who bought the manor and built a mansion here in Henry VII's time. The present house is an attractive early Georgian mansion in red brick, built by James Buller (d. 1765
