Burlescombe is located within Mid Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Bampton Hundred. It falls within Collumpton 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 853 in 1801 684 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 234 adult males signed the Protestation returns.

A parish history file is held in Tiverton 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 Burlescombe 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 35/12 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 35SE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is ST075166. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet ST01NE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 128, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 181. Geological sheet 311 also covers the area.

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

BURLESCOMBE has a 15th century church (St. Mary), which stands well and possesses a particularly charming interior. In the N. or Ayshford aile are the coloured monuments of that family: (1) Roger Ayshford (1610) and his wife Elizabeth; (2) Elizabeth, wife of Arthur Ayshford (1635). These beautiful monuments hang like pictures on the plastered wall. The aisle has a wagon-roof with figures of angels along the wall-plates. In the chancel is the alter-tomb of William Ayshford (d. 1508) and his two wives. The tomb is coloured and is ornamented on its sides with ten standing figures under canopies. The 15th century rood-screen has thin and poor detail and is crudely painted.

Ayshford, the seat of the Ayshfords from the time of Henry I to 1689, is now a diminished farmhouse, partly 16th century in date. The private chapel of the family still stands nearby, a 15th century building, thoroughly restored in 1860, with a poor screen and a mural monument to John Ayshford (1689), the last of the direct line. Ayshford was a domesday manor. So, too, were Cannonsleigh, Fenacre Farm and Appledore.

At Canonsleigh Farm is the sight of an Augustinian nunnery founded by Maud, Countess of Devon. A house of Austin Canons had been founded here by William de Claville between 1161 and 1173, but in 1284 the house and its property were made over to regular canonesses of the same order, the head of the nunnery ranking as an Abbess. (Oliver, Mon.,224; Stephan, 69.) A damaged gateway remains (the W. entrance to the priory) and part of a tower. There are also remains of the priory mill. At Westleigh, nearby, are extensive limestone quarries producing lime and roadstone.