Axminster is located within East Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Axminster Hundred. It falls within Honiton Vol 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 2154 in 1801 2933 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In the valuation of 1334 it was assessed at £05/00/00. The lay subsidy of 1524 valued the community at £10/02/05. It is recorded as a borough from 1209/10. A turnpike was established in 1754. A market is recorded from 14c.-1985.

A parish history file is held in Axminster 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 Axminster 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 72/5,6 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 72NW
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SY297984. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SY29NE,SY39NW, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 029, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 192. Geological sheet 326 also covers the area.

Illustrations: The image below is of Axminster as included in the Library's Etched on Devon's memory website. 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:

AXMINSTER is a quiet little market-town, well sited on a bluff above the Axe. Aminster or monasterium was founded here probably soon after 705, when the see of Sherborne was created to bring Devon within the Saxon episcopal organisation. The town itself lay on or near the Fosse Way, and was one of the earliest settlements in the Saxon occupation of Devon, founded in all probability soon after 660. It was a royal estate until 1204, when King John granted it to William Brewer. From the Brewers it passed to the Mohuns by marriage, and Reginald Mohun gave it to the Cistercian abbey of Newenham which was founded S. W. of the town in 1246. Mter the Dissolution the manor passed to the Greys, and then to the Howards. Lord William Howard sold it to Lord Petre in 1605 for £7,200. The Petres disposed of a good deal of the land during the next two centuries, and in 1824 sold the remainder, with the rest of their estates in the neighbourhood, for £43,000.(D.A. 67 (1935), 306-7)

A Sunday market had grown up at Axminster during the 12th century and in 1204 it was confirmed to William Brewer. A charter of 1209 is said to have made Axminster a free borough, and another in 1215 granted the burgesses an eight-day fair beginning on the feast of St. John the Baptist. This fair was still held in Lysons's day (1822) but has now ceased. Two one-day fairs are now held, one on the Tuesday after April 25, and the other on the Wednesday after October 10. At the October fair there is usually a good show of cattle, sheep, and horses.

The parish church (St. Mary and St. John the Evangelist), formerly prebendal, is the most interesting building in the town. It is a cruciform structure, with a central tower, its transepts enlarged into aisles at later dates; and the central tower was rebuilt in the 13th century above the old crossing. The chancel also is largely 13th century At the E. end of the S. aisle is a good Norman doorway (c. 1150), originally the S. doorway of the nave. Among the fittings of the church are a handsome pulpit and reading-desk (1633) and a fine chandelier (1750).

Of Newenham abbey only small traces of walling remain. The farm- house on the site (Higher Newenham) is of 16th and 17th century date. John Prince, author of The Worthies of Devon, was born here in 1643. Great Trill, first mentioned in I 173, was one of the properties of the Drakes of Ashe, and at one time a small manor house. There art: remains of Tudor buildings in the yard. The house itself has been modernised to some extent. It is practically certain that the great Duke of Marlborough was born in this house on 24 May 1650, and not at Ashe House in Musbury, as is so often asserted.

Weycroft, "built on the rising of a hill," is largely of early 15th century date. In 1417 Bishop Stafford licensed a private chapel here, and in 426 a royal licence was granted to crenellate the mansion and enclose a park of 800 acres. The most interesting remaining feature is the great hall in the N. section (c. 1400) which runs to the full height of the house and has a range of three large windows on each side. There is a contemporary gallery at the lower end treated like a rood-loft. The S. section of the house is mainly 17th century and later, but the E. wing is probably 15th century.

Smallridge was one of the earliest homes of the Raleighs in Devon. They were here before 1242 and lived here for ten or eleven generations until Sir Wimond Raleigh, the grandfather of the celebrated Sir Walter, sold it temp. Henry VIII. Cloakham House, not far away, was built in 1732.

The Axminster carpet manufacture was started here in 1755 but failed in 1835. The original factory building may be seen NE of the church. The carpet manufacture has recently been revived in the town.