Bratton Fleming

Bratton Fleming is a large village, civil parish and former manor near Barnstaple, in Devon, England. It lies a few miles west of Exmoor. The parish is surrounded, clockwise from the north, by the parishes of Challacombe, Brayford, Stoke Rivers, Goodleigh, Shirwell, Loxhore, Arlington and Kentisbury.[1] The population of the parish in 2001 was 942, falling to 928 in 2011.[2] There is an electoral ward with the same name which at the 2011 census had a population of 2,117.[3]

Bratton Fleming

The White Hart Inn, Bratton Fleming
Bratton Fleming
Location within Devon
Population928 
OS grid referenceSS6437
District
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townBarnstaple
Postcode districtEX31
PoliceDevon and Cornwall
FireDevon and Somerset
AmbulanceSouth Western
UK Parliament

History

The former Manor of Bratton Fleming was owned by a succession of families from the Norman Conquest to the 19th century. The Flemings had their seat at Chimwell which Tristram Risdon described as "one of the largest demesnes of this shire". According to W. G. Hoskins, Chimwell is now a farmhouse called Chumhill.[4] Other Domesday manors in the parish were Benton and Haxton. The great jurist Henry de Bracton (c. 1210 – c. 1268) was either born here or at Bratton Clovelly.

The village was once served by a railway station, supposedly 'the most beautiful in England', on the narrow gauge Lynton & Barnstaple Railway; the trackbed runs close to the village. The street names Station Road and Station Hill survive.

Church

St Peter's Church was rebuilt on the site of a much older building, in 1861.

Rev. Gascoigne Canham (d.1667), Rector of Arlington, whose mural monument exists in Arlington Church, and a relative by marriage to the Chichester family of Arlington (a cadet branch of the Chichesters of Raleigh and later of Youlston, lords of the manor of Bratton Fleming), purchased in 1665 the advowson of Bratton Fleming, 2 1/2 miles south-east of Arlington, from Sir Francis Godolphin for £300,[5] and on 27 March 1667 he signed a deed granting the advowson in perpetuity to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, of which he was a member.[6] He also gave £10 toward the "Combination Room" of that college.[7] A mural monument exists in St Peter's Church, Bratton Fleming, to Rev. Bartholomew Wortley, the first rector to be appointed by Gonville & Caius College. He was aged about 50 when appointed and remained in office until his death in 1749 aged 97.

See also

References
  1. "Map of Devon Parishes" (PDF). Devon County Council. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 November 2013. Retrieved 20 June 2013.
  2. "Parish population 2011". Retrieved 20 February 2015.
  3. "Ward population 2011". Retrieved 20 February 2015.
  4. Hoskins, W.G., A New Survey of England: Devon, Newton Abbot: David & Charles. New edition, 1972. p. 345. ISBN 0-7153-5577-5
  5. Copy deed held at North Devon Record Office (1506 A-1/PI5)
  6. Worthy, Charles, Devonshire Wills: A Collection of a Number of Testaments
  7. Venn, John, Biographical History of Gonville & Caius College, 1897, pp.280-1, 287

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