Zeal Monachorum
Zeal Monachorum is located within Mid Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of North Tawton Hundred. It falls within Chulmleigh 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 622 in 1801 316 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 110 adult males signed the Protestation returns.
A parish history file is held in Crediton 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 Zeal Monachorum 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 54/9 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 54SW
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SS720040. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SS70SW, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 113, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 191. Geological sheet 324 also covers the area.
Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:
ZEAL MONACHORUM is a small cob and thatch village in unfrequented country. The church (St. Peter) was much restored in 1913 when a chancel screen of cast iron and bad design was put in; but it had already been devastated in 1854 by the then parson who removed the medieval screen and the box-pews. The fabric is mainly 14th century in date, with a 15th century S. aisle. Loosebeare and Lower Newton were Domesday manors.
