Atherington

from

A Topographical Dictionary of England

by

 Samuel Lewis (1831)

Transcript copyright Mel Lockie (Sep 2016)

ATHERINGTON, a parish in the hundred of NORTH-TAWTON-with-WINKLEY, county of DEVON, 7 miles (N.E. by E.) from Great Torrington, containing 535 inhabitants. The living is a rectory, iu the archdeaconry of Barnstaple, and diocese of Exeter, rated in the king's books at £26. 2. 1., and in the patronage of Francis Basset, Esq. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, contains a richly ornamented screen and rood-loft crossing the north aisle; also the monument of a crusader, and an altar-tomb, with the figures of a knight and his two ladies on brass plates. A chapel was erected here, in the reign of Henry III., by the nuns belonging to the convent of Caen in Normandy, founded and endowed by Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror, with lands in this parish, where they had a cell.