Whitchurch is located within West Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Roborough Hundred. It falls within Tavistock 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 478 in 1801 1508 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 138 adult males signed the Protestation returns.

A parish history file is held in Tavistock 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 Whitchurch 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 105/12 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 105SE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX491727. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX47SE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Outdoor Leisure 28, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 191. Geological sheet 338 also covers the area.

Illustrations: The image below is of Whitchurch 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:

WHITCHURCH means "white church." There must have been a church here as early as the 11th century, probably built of the white elvan found on Roborough Down only two or three miles away. The present church (St. Andrew) is mainly a 15th century building, of elvan and granite. There are a number of interesting memorials in the church, including a well-carved early 17th century slate slab to the Mooringes of Moortown, and a good monument to Francis Pengelly (1722) by John Weston of Exeter, showing a sort of celestial ballet on a medallion.

The parish has a considerable number of interesting houses. The so called Priory, near the church, is a 19th century granite building incorporating a square 14th century entrance tower of an earlier structure. Walreddon is an attractive Elizabethan house, altered to some extent in the 18th century it was the home of a younger branch of the Courtenays in the 18th and early 19th centuries.

Sortridge was built c. 1640. Moor- town, 800 ft. up on the flank of Whitchurch Common, was the home of the Mooringe or Morwen family from at least the early 4th century, and probably much earlier.

Holwell was the ancient seat of the Glanvilles from the late 14th century until about 1700; there are remains of the Glanville mansion. At Lower Collaton the farmhouse is of some antiquity.

Horrabridge takes its name from the Horebridge ("boundary bridge") over the Walkham. The present structure may well be 14th century in date.