Merton is located within Torridge local authority area. Historically it formed part of Shebbear Hundred. It falls within Torrinton 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 689 in 1801 507 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 133 adult males signed the Protestation returns.

A parish history file is held in Torrington 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 Merton 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 41/5,9 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 41NW,41NE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SS528123. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SS51SW, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 127, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 180. Geological sheet 309 also covers the area.

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

MERTON village is unexciting; and the church of All Saints was grossly over-restored at great cost in 1875. Only the bold W. tower and the lofty N. arcade of granite (both 15th century) remain of the old building.

Walter de Merton, founder of Merton College at Oxford, was born here*. Other Domesday estates were Potheridge, Speccott, and Dunsbear, all of which have some interest. The Monks owned Great Potheridge as early as Henry II's time. George Monk, 1st Duke of Albemarle, was born here in 1608 and rebuilt the ancestral house on a grand scale c. 1660-70. This great house was almost entirely demolished after the death of the second duchess in 1734 but the splendid oak staircase remains, together with its painted and plastered ceiling, and a fine panelled room.

At Speccott Barton, about I m. SW. of Great Potheridge, the Speccotts lived from the 12th to the 17th century. The present house was much rebuilt in the 19th century

*The great Walter de Merton, Bishop of Rochester, and founder of Merton College, Oxford, was a native of Basingstoke. His parents were buried in the church, and his mother had inherited property in the town. (Information provided by Friends of Merton Priory and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography).