Dolton is located within Torridge local authority area. Historically it formed part of North Tawton Hundred. It falls within Torrington 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 582 in 1801 621 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 113 adult males signed the Protestation returns.

A parish history file is held in Torrington 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 Dolton 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 41/11 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 41SE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX571121. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SS51SE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 127, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 180. Geological sheet 309 also covers the area.

Illustrations: The image below is of Dolton 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:

DOLTON is in a remote, little visited part of Devon. The church (St. Edmund) has a remarkable font. It consists of two square blocks placed one on the other, the upper block being turned upside down and hollowed out. On three faces of this block the serpent motive appears, interlaced in the Scandinavian manner. The lower block is covered with another variety of interlaced work. These blocks were made out of a Christian monument (probably l0th century) which may originally have stood at Halsdon (" holy stone ").

The church is otherwise uninteresting, mostly rebuilt in 1888. There are several inscriptions to the Stafford family, of Stafford Barton, from 1589 to 1835. At the E. end of the S. aisle are four 16th century bench-ends one of which has the initials of John Stafford, Esq., and the date 1581. Stafford was a Domesday manor. The present house has been very much altered and enlarged, but the core may be of mid 16th century date or earlier. There was a chapel here in 1415.

Iddlecott and Cherubeer may be identified also as Domesday manors. Halsdon has been the seat of the Furses since about 1680, and is associated with William Cory (1823-92), the poet and writer, who lived here for a time.