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South Brent is located within South Hams local authority area. Historically it formed part of Stanborough Hundred. It falls within Totnes 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 1032 in 1801 1360 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. The lay subsidy of 1524 valued the community at £21/13/04. In 1641/2 267 adult males signed the Protestation returns. A market is recorded from 1822.

A parish history file is held in Totnes & Ivybridge 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 South Brent 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 120/9 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 120SW
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX700600. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX66SE,SX65NE +, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Outdoor Leisure 20, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 202. Geological sheet 349 also covers the area.

Illustrations: The image below is of South Brent 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:

BRENT, SOUTH is an extensive parish running far on to the Moor. It takes its name from the steep hill (O.E.branl="steep") just above the village, on the summit of which are the ruins of a windmill, built about 1790. The view from here is one of the grandest in Devon. On the high moorlands are many hutcircles, enclosures, and barrows-all of Bronze Age date the exact site of which must be located with the 2t-inch map (sheet 20/66). The manor of Brent belonged to Buckfast Abbey from the time of the foundation of the abbey in the early 11th century and was bought at the Dissolution by Sir William Petre, a large receiver of monastic spoils in South Devon.

The church (St. Petrock) is interesting. The massive Norman tower (now at the W. end) was apparently the central tower of a cruciform building, the W. portion of which was demolished at some date, perhaps in the early 14th century when the existing nave was rebuilt with two transepts. In the early 15th century these transepts were enlarged into aisles. The fine font, of red sandstone, is late 12th century in date, and is similar in style to others in neighbouring churches. On the S. of the churchyard is the manor house, part of which is 15th century in date.

Harbourneford was a Domesday manor. The old road from South Brent to Buckfastleigh goes this way, and there is a clapper footbridge with four openings alongside the ancient ford.

Extract from: Dr. Parson’s report to the Local Government Board on typhoid fever in the Totnes Urban and Rural Sanitary Districts, 1871.

South Brent. - In this village typhoid fever is almost endemic; it has not been absent any year, as far back at least as 1875. About 30 cases were heard of, occurring in 19 households. South Brent is situated on a high and open site, but the cottages are many of them old and dilapidated, built in confined situations, and as regards sanitary condition wretched in the extreme. The inhabitants are employed, some in agriculture, others at a flock manufactory. The main street is drained by two stone sewers, one of which discharges into a brook, the other upon a meadow; the outfall of the latter ,vas formerly close to a house, but on the occurrence of several cases of typhoid fever in this house pipes were laid to carry the outfall to a greater distance from it.

There is a public supply of water brought down from a reservoir to taps in various parts of the village. The reservoir is supplied by a spring which rises in a water meadow on the hillside above. This water meadow is irrigated partly by a stream which receives the contents of the privy of a farmhouse, and the drainage of the farmyard; but the portion immediately above the spring is watered by another stream, though it would be possible to divert the stream from the farmyard over it. No fever has occurred at the farmhouse during the many years that the occupier has lived there. The overflow of the reservoir runs in an open stone channel down the side of the street. Dirty vessels, vegetables, offal, &c. are washed in this stream, and the Medical Officer of Health has seen children on their knees drinking out of it; he has recommended that it should be diverted into the sewers in order to flush them.

Privy accommodation is scanty, one privy being sometimes shared by five, six, or seven houses. In such cases either the privy is allowed to get into a filthy condition, through disputes as to the responsibility for its cleanliness, or else it is not made use of, the men resorting to the fields, the women using utensils in the house, and throwing the contents of them on dung heaps.

A number of cases of typhoid fever occurred in 1877, in a group of wretched cottages in Fore Street, and behind the "Anchor" inn. One of these, then inhabited by a man, his wife, and 10 children, but now empty, has a living room of 1,670 cubic feet, and two bedrooms of together 1,450 cubic feet. The lower floor, of rough stone, is below the ground level; the bedrooms are only 6 ft. 6in. high to the roof, which is not ceiled, but merely plastered on the under side of the slates, and does not keep out the rain. One bedroom has a window of 10 square feet, of which a third-opens; the other has only a skylight which will not open. there are no back windows, and the front of the house looks into a narrow passage, bounded by a high wall; 8 feet from the front door was the untrapped inlet of a stone drain, since trapped and piped. Close to this are six back-to-back houses, in two of which fever occurred about the same time; the stone drain above mentioned runs under one of the houses in which fever occurred, and there are untrapped gratings in the backyard close-to the doors and windows. […]