Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for MODBURY

MODBURY, a small town, a parish, and a sub-district, in Kingssbridge district, Devon. The town stands on steep declivities, descending to the bottom of a valley, 1¾ mile E of the river Erme, 4½ SSE of Ivy-Bridge r. station, and 11½ E by S of Plymouth; dates from remote times; was anciently called Mortherry and Motheria; belonged, in the time of the Confessor, to Wado; sent two members to parliament in the time of Edward I., but afterwards petitioned to be exempted from sending them on account of poverty; was, with adjacent fields, the scene of a sanguinary conflict between royalist and parliamentarian forces, when, tradition says, "the streets ran blood; ''is governed by a portreeve, elected annually, and by other officers; is a seat of petty sessions; consists chiefly of four streets, descending the hills from the cardinal points to a common centre at the bottom of the valley; includes houses on the E perched on so steep an acclivity as to look as if they would fall down upon and overwhelm the parts below; contains many houses with slated fronts, of ghastly appearance; presents, nevertheless, a singularly picturesque aspect, as seen from almost any neighbouring point of view; is well supplied with water from three old granite conduits; and has a post office‡ under IvyBridge, a good inn, a church, three dissenting chapels, a literary and scientific institution, a national school, a British school, and charities £18. The church is ancient, and was originally cruciform; consists now of nave, aisles, and chancel, with projecting sacrarium, S porch, and W spire,-the last rebuilt about 1621, and tapering from the ground to a height of 134 feet; has a curiously sculptured door-way in the N wall; underwent recent repair in the interior; and contains monuments of the Champernownes and the Swetes. The dissenting chapels are for Baptists, Quakers, and Wesleyans. The literary institution was founded and endowed in 1840 by Mr. Richard King, a native of the town, who acquired wealth in America; and it is a handsome edifice. The British school was formerly an Independent chapel. A weekly market is held on Thursday; a cattle market, on the second Monday of every month; and a large fair, on 4 May.—The parish comprises 6,233 acres of land, and 25 of water. Real property, £12,634. Pop. in 1851, 1.858; in 1861,1,621. Houses, 338. The decrease of pop. arose from scarcity of employment. The manor went from Wado to the Valletorts; passed to the Okestones and the Champernownes; was held by the latter so early as the time of Edward II.; and passed, in the beginning of the 18th century, to the Legassickes. Modbury Court, on a hill immediately W of the town, was the seat of the Champernownes, where they lived in great splendour; was fortified, besieged, and captured at the time of the royalist and parliamentarian conflict in 1642; and has been displaced by a modern house, occupied by a maltster. Fleet House, Ludbrook House, and Whimpstone are chief residences. A Benedictine priory, a cell to St. Peter-sur-Dive in Normandy, stood at Scotland farm; was given, by Henry VI., to Eton college; and has left some traces. Sir John Fortescue, Lord Chief Justice in the time of Henry VI., and Sir John Baker, president of the Royal College of Physicians in the last century, were natives. The living is a vicarage, united with the chapelry of Brownstone, in the diocese of Exeter. Valne, £302.* Patron, Eton College.—The sub-district contains also four-other parishes. Acres, 16,108. Pop., 3,679. Houses, 783.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a small town, a parish, and a sub-district"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Modbury AP/CP       Modbury SubD       Devon AncC
Place names: MODBURY     |     MORTHERRY     |     MOTHERIA
Place: Modbury

Go to the linked place page for a location map, and for access to other historical writing about the place. Pages for linked administrative units may contain historical statistics and information on boundaries.