Witheridge is located within North Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Witheridge Hundred. It falls within South Molton 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 875 in 1801 1024 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. The lay subsidy of 1524 valued the community at £09/06/02. In 1641/2 150 adult males signed the Protestation returns. It is recorded as a borough from 1248. A market is recorded from 14 cent..

A parish history file is held in Chulmleigh 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 Witheridge 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 44/1 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 44NW
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SS805145. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SS81SW, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 114, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 181. Geological sheet 310 also covers the area.
A fair is known from: 14c.-1888. [It is intended to include the local section from The glove is up! Devon's historic fairs, by Tricia Gerrish, by kind permission of the author].

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

WITHERIDGE is a large compact village in the upland country between Tiverton and South Molton, roughly equidistant from each. It was the earliest settlement in the district and gave its name to an ancient hundred. Much of the parish consists of wet moors rising to 700-800 ft. which were, however, occupied in the Bronze Age, as witness the numerous barrows on Witheridge Moor and Dart Raffe Moor. Berry Castle, on a ridge between two headstrearns of the Little Dart, is a small quadrangular fortification, surrounded by a rampart and ditch. Queen Dart, near by, was a small Domesday manor. Other Domesday estates, besides Witheridge itself, were Adworthy, Bradford Barton, Dart Raffe, and Drayford. In 1248 Robertson of Pagan (Fitzpaine), Lord of Witheridge, was granted a weekly market on Wednesdays and a three-day fair on the eve, feast, and morrow of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, the dedication festival of the parish church (June 24). In 1890 the village had two fairs and three great cattle markets annually.

The parish church (St. John the Baptist) is built of the local brown dun- stone. The chancel is early 14th century in date, but the remainder of the church was rebuilt during the 15th century, and restored in 1876 and later. As a whole, the church is unexciting, but it has some fine points. Notice the excellent 15th century font and the fine medieval stone pulpit. The village to-day is large and cheerful, with some interesting native Devon architecture. After a long decline in the 19th century, it has now revived with the establishment of bus services to and from neighbouring towns.