Upton Pyne is located within East Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Wonford Hundred. It falls within Cadbury 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 409 in 1801 355 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 84 adult males signed the Protestation returns.

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 Upton Pyne 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 68/9 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 68SW
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX911977. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX99NW, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 114, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 192. Geological sheet 325 also covers the area.

Illustrations: The image below is of Upton Pyne 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:

UPTON PYNE is a small unspoilt village of thatched and whitewashed cottages, on the N. slope of the wooded clump of Pynes Hill. The churchyard looks N. to the hills of Raddon, Cadbury, and Christ Cross, over a placid countryside of the fertile Red Sandstones. At any time of the year this is one of the most satisfying views in all Devon. This piece of country between Pynes Hill and Raddon must have been open in the Bronze Age, as four bar- rows of that period are found in it, three near Stevens tone farm and one at No Man's Cross.

The manor came to the Pynes in the time of Henry I. They held it for ten generations, followed by the Larders for five. Early in the 18th century the heiress of Stafford of Pynes married her neighbour Sir Henry Northcote, 5th bart., and took the manor to him. The Northcotes still live here. Sir Henry probably built the present Pynes, a typical Queen Anne house, enlarged in 1851 without spoiling its formal beauty.

Cowley is a hamlet of Upton Pyne, chiefly notable for a fine bridge of classical design, built over the Creedy in 1813-14 by James Green, pupil of Rennie and surveyor to the county of Devon. Although so recent in date, the bridge has been scheduled as an ancient monument. Cowley church was built in 1866, and is decent.

Upton Pyne church (St. Mary) is singularly attractive externally. It is built of the local volcanic stone, and has a particularly beautiful tower, with figures of the four evangelists at its corners and that of Christ in Benediction on its W. face. The chancel has some early 14th century work; the W. tower and S. aisle were probably added about 1400, the N. aisle in 1833. The altar-piece is a painting of the Last Supper by an unknown hand, brought from Italy by one of the Northcotes about 1710. There is an altar-tomb to Humphrey Larder (d. 1588), another with a recumbent effigy of Edmund Larder (d. 1521), and several monuments to the Northcotes of Pynes, later Earls of Iddesleigh.

Dr. John Walker, author of The Sufferings of the Clergy, was rector here 1720-47, and is buried on the N. side of the churchyard.