Bampton is located within Mid Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Bampton Hundred. It falls within Tiverton 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 1361 in 1801 1440 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website.In the valuation of 1334 it was assessed at £03/16/07. The lay subsidy of 1524 valued the community at £17/17/08. In 1641/2 328 adult males signed the Protestation returns. It is recorded as a borough from 1210. A turnpike was established in 1785. A market is recorded from 14c.-1822.

A parish history file is held in Bampton 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 Bampton 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 24/15 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 24SE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SS957223. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SS92SE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 114, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 181. Geological sheet 310 also covers the area.
A fair is known from: 14c.-1935. [It is intended to include the local section from The glove is up! Devon's historic fairs, by Tricia Gerrish, by kind permission of the author].

Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:

BAMPTON is a small market town on the river Batherm near confluence with the Exe, lying in beautiful hilly country. It was an early Saxon village and gave its name to a hundred, developing in the 13th century into a small town. It has two fairs and a weekly market, and by 1302 we hear of burgesses here. It was, however, never incorporated but continued to be governed by two portreeves until 1894. Like many Devon market-towns it had large cattle and sheep markets, and a cloth industry from early times. The latter had dwindled almost to nothing by the early 19th century, but the two fairs remained among the largest in the west of England. The October fair is still famous for its cattle and sheep sales, and above all for the Exmoor ponies brought down from the moor.

The town is quiet and of no architectural interest. Most of the houses are covered with a rather drab stucco. The church (St. Michael, but formerly St. Mary according to Oliver) is mainly a building of c. 1300, much rebuilt and enlarged in the 15th century when the N. aisle was added. It is now all "scraped" and over-restored. The tall, plain tower isc.1300 in date. John Bourchier,Lord Fitzwarren, created 1st Earl of Bath in 1536, and prominent at the court of Henry VIII, was buried in Bampton church where he endowed a chantry. As late as 1770 his tomb still stood in the N. aisle, with the effigies of himself, Cecily his wife, and their eight children.

Bampton Castle, so called, is at the E. end of Castle Street. It now consists of nothing more than a mount with some traces of outworks, and seems originally to have been a fortified house rather than a true castle.

S. of Bampton are extensive limestone quarries, of considerable interest to the geologist, commanding an excellent view of the town. Davale Barton is probably a Celtic name from the British du "black" and bal peak, prominence," referring to the curiously shaped hill between the Exe and the Batherm. Dippford was a small Domesday estate.