Brendon is located within North Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Sherwill Hundred. It falls within Shirwell 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 260 in 1801 262 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website.In 1641/2 404 adult males signed the Protestation returns.

A parish history file is held in Lynton 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 Brendon 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 3/15 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 3SE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SS769482. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SS74NE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Outdoor Leisure 09, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 180. Geological sheet 277 also covers the area.

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

BRENDON is a large parish with much beautiful valley scenery and moorland. Badgworthy, Cheriton and Lank Combe represent small Domesday estates. Lank Combe is now un-inhabited. Cheriton means "farm by the church," but there is no church here to-day. At some date it was removed to its present solitary site about a mile away. It is dedicated to St. Brendan, the 6th century Irish saint. The building is, however, of no interest except for its Norman font, having been almost completely rebuilt in 1873 when the N. aisle and N. transept were added. The churchyard, on a hill and surrounded by trees, commands very fine views of the rolling Exmoor foothills.