Rose Ash
Rose Ash 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 357 in 1801 439 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 92 adult males signed the Protestation returns.
A parish history file is held in South Molton 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 Rose Ash 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 22/16 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 22SE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SS789217. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SS72SE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 127, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 180. Geological sheet 310 also covers the area.
Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:
ROSEASH lies on the back of a long ridge, nearly 800 ft. up, which is traversed by a prehistoric ridgeway. Much of the parish is wild, moory ground from which there are superb views of Exmoor and Dartmoor. The church (St. Peter) is a small I5th and 16th century building, entirely rebuilt (except for the tower) in 1888-92. The chancel screen is of plain Perpendicular character; the N. aisle screen is Jacobean, dated 1618, and carries the arms of James I, Anne of Denmark, and Prince Charles. The parclose screen, enclosing the Southcomb chapel, is of the same date and design.
The Southcombs were rectors here without a break for eight generations from 1675 to 1948. An only son, the eleventh generation to live at Rose Ash, was killed in France in 1917. The present rectory was rebuilt in 1718 by the fourth Southcomb rector. Yard was a Domesday estate.
