Merton, Devon
   HOME
*



picture info

Merton, Devon
Merton is a village, ecclesiastical parish, former manor and civil parish administered by the local government district of Torridge, Devon, England. The parish, which lies about five miles south east of the town of Great Torrington, is surrounded clockwise from the north by the parishes of Little Torrington, Beaford, Dolton, Huish, Petrockstowe and Peters Marland. In 2001 its population was 331, down from the 507 residents it had in 1901. The eastern and northern boundaries of the parish follow the loops of the River Torridge and the other sides are defined by the River Mere. The village forms part of the electoral ward of Clinton. The population at the 2011 census was 1,537. The village is on the A386 road between Meeth and Great Torrington. The parish church, on the west side of the village, is dedicated to All Saints and dates from around 1400. It suffered a heavy Victorian restoration between 1872 and 1875 by R. M. Fulford, but the east window of the north chapel ret ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

All Saints' Day
All Saints' Day, also known as All Hallows' Day, the Feast of All Saints, the Feast of All Hallows, the Solemnity of All Saints, and Hallowmas, is a Christian solemnity celebrated in honour of all the saints of the church, whether they are known or unknown. From the 4th century, feasts commemorating all Christian martyrs were held in various places, on various dates near Easter and Pentecost. In the 9th century, some churches in the British Isles began holding the commemoration of all saints on 1 November, and in the 9th century this was extended to the whole Catholic church by Pope Gregory IV. In Western Christianity, it is still celebrated on 1 November by the Roman Catholic Church as well as many Protestant churches, as the Lutheran, Anglican, and Methodist traditions. The Eastern Orthodox Church and associated Eastern Catholic and Eastern Lutheran churches celebrate it on the first Sunday after Pentecost. The Syro-Malabar Church and the Chaldean Catholic Church, both of who ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Speccot, Merton
Speccot is an historic estate in the parish of Merton in Devon, England. Pole, Sir William (d.1635), Collections Towards a Description of the County of Devon, Sir John-William de la Pole (ed.), London, 1791, p.381 It was the seat of the de Speccot family, one of the oldest gentry families in Devon, which founded almshouses at Taddiport, near Great Torrington, Devon, in the 13th century. It is situated about one mile south-west of Potheridge, the seat of the Monck family from before 1287 to the late 17th century, who were thus close neighbours of the de Speccot family for many centuries. The present farmhouse known as "Speccot Barton" is Victorian and although no obvious traces of an earlier house survive, is marked "On Site of a Mansion" on the First Edition Ordnance Survey 25 inch map of 1880-99. The estate is today operated as a family-run sheep farm with six holiday cottages to let. A smaller house known as "Little Speccot" is situated on the approach lane to Speccot Barto ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Fireplace Mantel
The fireplace mantel or mantelpiece, also known as a chimneypiece, originated in medieval times as a hood that projected over a fire grate to catch the smoke. The term has evolved to include the decorative framework around the fireplace, and can include elaborate designs extending to the ceiling. ''Mantelpiece'' is now the general term for the jambs, mantel shelf, and external accessories of a fireplace. For many centuries, the ''chimneypiece'' was the most ornamental and most artistic feature of a room, but as fireplaces have become smaller, and modern methods of heating have been introduced, its artistic as well as its practical significance has lessened. Where the fireplace continues up the wall with an elaborate construction, as in historic grand buildings, this is known as an overmantel.''OED'' first citation, 1882. Mirrors and paintings designed to be hung above a mantel shelf may be called "mantel mirror", "mantel painting" and so on. History Up to the twelfth century ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Great Hall
A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, castle or a large manor house or hall house in the Middle Ages, and continued to be built in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries, although by then the family used the great chamber for eating and relaxing. At that time the word "great" simply meant big and had not acquired its modern connotations of excellence. In the medieval period, the room would simply have been referred to as the "hall" unless the building also had a secondary hall, but the term "great hall" has been predominant for surviving rooms of this type for several centuries, to distinguish them from the different type of hall found in post-medieval houses. Great halls were found especially in France, England and Scotland, but similar rooms were also found in some other European countries. A typical great hall was a rectangular room between one and a half and three times as long as it was wide, and also higher than it was wide. It was entered ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Charles II Of England
Charles II (29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685) was King of Scotland from 1649 until 1651, and King of England, Scotland and Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685. Charles II was the eldest surviving child of Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and Henrietta Maria of France. After Charles I's execution at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War, the Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II king on 5 February 1649. But England entered the period known as the English Interregnum or the English Commonwealth, and the country was a de facto republic led by Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell defeated Charles II at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, and Charles fled to mainland Europe. Cromwell became virtual dictator of England, Scotland and Ireland. Charles spent the next nine years in exile in France, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands. The political crisis that followed Cromwell's death in 1 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Restoration (1660)
The Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland took place in 1660 when King Charles II returned from exile in continental Europe. The preceding period of the Protectorate and the civil wars came to be known as the Interregnum (1649–1660). The term ''Restoration'' is also used to describe the period of several years after, in which a new political settlement was established. It is very often used to cover the whole reign of King Charles II (1660–1685) and often the brief reign of his younger brother King James II (1685–1688). In certain contexts it may be used to cover the whole period of the later Stuart monarchs as far as the death of Queen Anne and the accession of the Hanoverian King George I in 1714. For example, Restoration comedy typically encompasses works written as late as 1710. The Protectorate After Richard Cromwell, Lord Protector from 1658 to 1659, ceded power to the Rump Parliament, Charles Fleetwood and John ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

George Monck, 1st Duke Of Albemarle
George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle JP KG PC (6 December 1608 – 3 January 1670) was an English soldier, who fought on both sides during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. A prominent military figure under the Commonwealth, his support was crucial to the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, who rewarded him with the title Duke of Albemarle and other senior positions. The younger son of an impoverished Devon landowner, Monck began his military career in 1625 and served in the Eighty Years' War until 1638, when he returned to England. Posted to Ireland as part of the army sent to suppress the Irish Rebellion of 1641, he quickly gained a reputation for efficiency and ruthlessness. After Charles I agreed to a truce with the Catholic Confederacy in September 1643, he was captured fighting for the Royalists at Nantwich in January 1644 and remained a prisoner for the next two years. Released in 1647, he was named Parliamentarian commander in Eastern Ulster, fought in Scotland under ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Tarka Trail
The Tarka Trail is a series of footpaths and cyclepaths (rail trails) around north Devon, England that follow the route taken by the fictional Tarka the Otter in the book of that name. It covers a total of in a figure-of-eight route, centred on Barnstaple. The section between Braunton and Meeth is car-free, level and mostly tarmacked, and is shared by pedestrians and cyclists, with horseriding also permitted on part of it. The remainder of the route covers a wide variety of landscapes, including wooded river valleys, moorland, coastal cliffs and sandy beaches. Walking varies between easy through to moderate and strenuous, depending on the location, but, in general, it is comprehensively waymarked. The trails are a popular tourist destination and bicycle hire businesses are available for those who wish to cycle along suitable sections of the trail. A section of the Trail is part of National Cycle Network route number 27 and forms part of the route known as the Devon Coas ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

North Devon And Cornwall Junction Light Railway
The North Devon and Cornwall Junction Light Railway was a railway built to serve numerous ball clay pits that lay in the space between the London and South Western Railway's Torrington branch, an extension of the North Devon Railway group, and Halwill, an important rural junction on the North Cornwall Railway and its Okehampton to Bude Line. Ball clay was an important mineral but its weight and bulk required efficient transportation; the material had been brought to main line railways by a gauge tramway. Expanding volumes prompted conversion to a light railway—requiring less complex engineering and operational procedures than a full railway—and it was opened on 27 July 1925.St John Thomas, David (editor), Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: Volume 1 - the West Country; David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 3rd edition 1966) Passengers were carried in addition to the mineral traffic, but the business largely consisted of workers at the ball clay pits themselves. ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Ball Clay
Ball clays are kaolinitic sedimentary clays that commonly consist of 20–80% kaolinite, 10–25% mica, 6–65% quartz. Localized seams in the same deposit have variations in composition, including the quantity of the major minerals, accessory minerals and carbonaceous materials such as lignite. They are fine-grained and plastic in nature, and, unlike most earthenware clays, produce a fine quality white-coloured pottery body when fired, which is the key to their popularity with potters. Ball clays are relatively scarce deposits due to the combination of geological factors needed for their formation and preservation. They are mined in parts of the Eastern United States and from three sitesThe Bovey Basin in South Devon, the Petrockstowe Basin in North Devon and the Wareham Basin in South Dorset. in Devon and Dorset in South West England. They are commonly used in the construction of many ceramic articles, where their primary role, apart from their white colour, is either to imp ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Domesday
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by the Latin name ''Liber de Wintonia'', meaning "Book of Winchester", where it was originally kept in the royal treasury. The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' states that in 1085 the king sent his agents to survey every shire in England, to list his holdings and dues owed to him. Written in Medieval Latin, it was highly abbreviated and included some vernacular native terms without Latin equivalents. The survey's main purpose was to record the annual value of every piece of landed property to its lord, and the resources in land, manpower, and livestock from which the value derived. The name "Domesday Book" came into use in the 12th century. Richard FitzNeal wrote in the ''Dialogus de Scaccario'' ( 1179) that the book w ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]