EAST ALLINGTON

Transcribed from William White's History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Devonshire 1850, by Terry Partridge.

ALLINGTON, (EAST) a pleasant scattered village, four miles N.E. by E. of Kingsbridge, has in its parish 729 souls, and 3500 acres of land, generally having a light fertile soil, and including Combe, Harleston, Yetson, and other scattered farms. W. B. Fortescue, Esq., owns nearly half the parish, and is lord of the manor, and has a handsome seat here, called FALLAPIT HOUSE, where his family has been seated for many generations. The present house is a large and handsome mansion, in the Elizabethan style, erected about 35 years ago, near the old one, an ivy mantled portion of which still remains. The house was enlarged in 1849, and is pleasantly situated in the midst of extensive and tasteful pleasure grounds. Fallapit was anciently the seat of a family of its own name. whose heiress married Sir Henry Fortescue, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland. She was his second wife, and their descendants in the male line resided here above 300 years. Sir Edmund Fortescue was created a baronet in 1644, but the title became extinct on the death of his son, in 1683. The estate then passed to a younger branch, which became extinct in 1734, by the death of Edmund Fortescue, Esq., whose daughter married Thomas Bury, Esq., whose heiress carried the estate in marriage to the Rev. Nathl. Wells, whose eldest son took the name of Fortescue, and was grandfather of the present proprietor. Sir. W. W. Knighton, Capt. Turner, Capt. Owen, C. Prideaux, Esq., Miss Prowse, Mr. W. Luscombe, and others have freehold estates in the parish. The Church (St. Andrew,) is a large ancient structure, in the early perpendicular style, with a lofty embattled tower, containing five bells. The nave has octagonal columns on the north, and clustered columns on the south side. The pulpit is beautifully carved, and the church has a clean and neat appearance, being renovated in 1848. The rectory, valued in K.B. at £32. 2s. 1d., and in 1831 at £345, is in the patronage of W. B. Fortescue, Esq., and incumbency of the Rev. H. R. Fortescue, B.A., who has 113A. 1R. 37P. of glebe, and a handsome Rectory House, built in 1847, in the Elizabethan style. The tithes were commuted in 1839 for £485 per annum, The poor parishioners have 20s. a year, left by John Peter, in 1570, out of the tithes of Cornworthy.

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