Manaton
Manaton is located within Teignbridge local authority area. Historically it formed part of Teignbridge Hundred. It falls within Moretonhampstead 2 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 348 in 1801 315 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 77 adult males signed the Protestation returns.
A parish history file is held in Bovey Tracey 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 Manaton 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 100/3,100/7 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 100NE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX750812. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX78SW,SX78SE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Outdoor Leisure 28, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 191. Geological sheet 338 also covers the area.
Illustrations: The image below is of Manaton 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:
MANATON is a good moorland village, with fine views everywhere. The church (St. Winifred) has a typical granite interior of the late 15th century, with wagon-roofs having carved bosses. The rood-screen (c.1490) is very fine, with interesting detail. It is of eleven bays, extending across nave and both aisles, and retains much of its ancient colour and gilding.
The parish extends far into the Moor. 3 m. due W. of the church is Grimspound, one of the most remarkable antiquities on Dartmoor, a circular walled enclosure containing 24 Bronze Age hut-circles. The name Grim undoubtedly refers to the Devil. This is one of several well-known sites in England "where a large prehistoric work was associated by the Saxons with diabolic forces." There are a great number of hut-circles and other pre-historic remains scattered about the moorland end of the parish, the exact sites of which are best located on the 21-inch Ordnance maps (20/77 and 20/78).
Langstone was a Domesday manor, together with Houndtor and Neadon. Wings tone, near the village, was the home for some years of John Galsworthy, the novelist and dramatist.
