Instow is located within North Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Fremington Hundred. It falls within Barnstaple 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 341 in 1801 634 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 Bideford 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 Instow 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 12/11 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 12SE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SS473304. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SS43SE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 139, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 180. Geological sheet 292 also covers the area.

Illustrations: The image below is of Instow 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:

INSTOW is now a small seaside resort at the meeting of the Taw and Torridge in a beautiful estuary. The old village lies on the hillside above, commanding delightful views of Appledore and the bay beyond. The parish church (St. John the Baptist) is a pleasant building, with a 14th century nave and chancel, and a N. aisle added by Richard Waterman and Emma his wife in 1547, as appears by an inscription on two capitals of the arcade. This aisle retains its original roof. The font and S. wall of the nave are Norman. In the S. transept is an attractive mural monument to a student-John Downe, son of the rector-who d. 1640 after two years at Oxford. His father was a nephew of Bishop Jewel, and wrote several religious tracts. Another mural monument (by Kendall of Exeter) commemorates Humphrey Sibthorpe ( 1797), who was Sherardian professor of botany at OXford. His son John succeeded him in the chair, and endowed the chair of rural economy at Oxford. The Sibthorpes lived at Fullingcott, a large farmhouse (formerly a mansion) built c. 1600. The country around it is very beautiful, with wide views of land and water. Bickleton and Worlington, now farxns, are both recorded in Domesday Book.