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BAMPTON

[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868)]

"BAMPTON, (or Bathampton), a parish and market town in the hundred of Bampton, in the county of Devon, 20 miles to the N. of Exeter, and 161 miles from London. It is situated near the confines of Somersetshire, on a stream called the Batherm, or Batham, which joins the river Exe a little below the town. The parish contains the two hamlets of Petton and Shillingford. It is a very old town, and is, by some antiquaries, considered to be the Saxon Beamdune, and the scene of the great defeat of the Britons by the Saxons in the year 614. At the Norman Conquest the manor was given to Walter de Douai, by whom a castle is said to have been built. Some vestiges of such a structure are still to be found. The government of the town, by a portreeve and constables annually chosen, is now merely nominal. The town is seated in a pleasant valley, the chief street forming part of the road between Tiverton and Dulverton. There are large quarries of limestone, and the production and sale of lime form an important part of the trade of the place. The manufacture of serge and of pottery is carried on. The living is a vicarage* in the diocese of Exeter, of the value of £118, in the patronage of J. Chichester Nagle, Esq., of Calverleigh, near Tiverton. The church is a large structure in the early English style, with a low tower, a groined roof, and some defaced monuments of the Earls of Bath. There are chapels belonging to the Baptists and Bible Christians, and a free school founded and endowed by Mrs. Penton, in 1821; also an infant school, established in 1845, and supported by voluntary contributions. The charities of the parish amount to £9 a year. Petty sessions are held in the town. John de Bampton, a native of this place, who died in 1391, was a Carmelite, and the first lecturer on Aristotle's philosophy at the University of Cambridge. There is a valuable chalybeate spring in the parish. Wednesday and Saturday are the market days. Fairs are held on Whit-Tuesday, the Wednesday before Ladyday, the last Thursday in October, and the last Wednesday in November, for the sale of cattle and sheep The sheep sold here are celebrated for their size and flavour.

"PETTON, a quarter in the parish of Bampton, county Devon, near Bampton."

"PEYTON, a chapelry in the parish and hundred of Bampton, county Devon, 4 miles N.E. of Bampton."

Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003