Belstone is located within West Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Black Torrington Hundred. It falls within Okehampton 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 137 in 1801 236 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 34 adult males signed the Protestation returns.

A parish history file is held in Okehampton 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 Belstone 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 77/5 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 77NW
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX620936. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX69SW, 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:

BELSTONE is a straggling village spoilt by some atrocious modern building since it was "discovered" fifty years ago. Nevertheless, the surrounding scenery is fine: Belstone Tor (1568 ft.) and Cawsand Beacon (1799 ft.) towering over the village, and the infant Taw hurrying through the gorge of Belstone Cleave. The parish contains much high moorland on which are some remains of hut circles and other traces of Bronze Age man.