South Zeal is located within West Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Wonford 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. It is recorded as a borough from 1299. Hamlet of South Tawton. A market is recorded from 14c.-1600.

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 South Zeal 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 77/7 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 77NE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX650938. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX69SW,SE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 113, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 191. Geological sheet 324 also covers the area.

Illustrations: The image below is of South Zeal 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:

At South Zeal, [in South Tawton parish] on the old line of the Exeter-Okehampton road, the Oxenham Arms is a good early 16th century granite building; but the medieval chapel, rebuilt in 1713 and restored in 1877, is dull.