Buckland Monachorum is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the

West Devon West Devon is a local government district with borough status in Devon, England. Its council is based in Tavistock, the borough's largest town. The borough also includes the towns of Hatherleigh, North Tawton and Okehampton, along with nume ...

district of

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

, England, situated on the

River Tavy The Tavy () is a river on Dartmoor, Devon, England. The name derives from the Brythonic languages, Brythonic root , once thought to mean 'dark' but now generally understood to mean 'to flow'. It has given its name to the town of Tavistock and ...

, about 10 miles north of

Plymouth Plymouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Devon, South West England. It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers River Plym, Plym and River Tamar, Tamar, about southwest of Exeter and ...

. In 2006 the neighbourhood had an estimated 1,511 residents and 654 dwellings. The electoral ward of the same name gave a population of 3,380 at the 2011 census. At the

2011 United Kingdom census A Census in the United Kingdom, census of the population of the United Kingdom is taken every ten years. The 2011 census was held in all countries of the UK on 27 March 2011. It was the first UK census which could be completed online via the Inter ...

the civil parish had a population of 3,763.

Domesday Book 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

(1086) records Buckland Monachorum (''Bocheland'') as having 46 households, land for 15 ploughs, a salt pan and a fishery. It was in the possession of William de Poilley, one of 17 estates he held in southern

as a

tenant-in-chief In medieval and early modern Europe, a tenant-in-chief (or vassal-in-chief) was a person who held his lands under various forms of feudal land tenure directly from the king or territorial prince to whom he did homage, as opposed to holding them ...

William the Conqueror William the Conqueror (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), sometimes called William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England (as William I), reigning from 1066 until his death. A descendant of Rollo, he was D ...

. Near to Buckland Monachorum is

Buckland Abbey Buckland Abbey is a Grade I listed 700-year-old house in Buckland Monachorum, near Yelverton, Devon, Yelverton, Devon, England, noted for its connection with Sir Richard Grenville the Younger and Sir Francis Drake. It is owned by the National ...

, home of Sir

Francis Drake Sir Francis Drake ( 1540 – 28 January 1596) was an English Exploration, explorer and privateer best known for making the Francis Drake's circumnavigation, second circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition between 1577 and 1580 (bein ...

during the

Elizabethan era The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The Roman symbol of Britannia (a female ...

. The village is the site of St Andrew's, a 12th-century church with a

Saxon The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...

baptismal font and the tombs of the Drake family and

Lord Heathfield Baron Heathfield of Gibraltar, was a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created on 6 July 1787 for General Sir George Augustus Eliott in recognition of his defence of Gibraltar during the Franco-Spanish Siege of 1779 to 1783. He w ...

, the defender of

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

, many historic buildings, and a complex of interesting gardens, known as "The Garden House". The Gift House, a seventeenth-century

Almshouse An almshouse (also known as a bede-house, poorhouse, or hospital) is charitable housing provided to people in a particular community, especially during the Middle Ages. They were often built for the poor of a locality, for those who had held ce ...

, was built by a descendant of Sir Francis Drake. The Drake Manor Inn - a public house, restaurant and B&B - is also situated in the village. A general store and Post Office was situated in the village until 2003. St Andrew's C of E Primary School is located in the village, providing education for around 200 pupils from the local area. In 2007 Ofsted judged the school 'outstanding'.

Civil parish

In addition to Buckland Monachorum, the parish includes the villages of Yelverton, Clearbrook, Crapstone and Milton Combe.

Notable people

Seth Lakeman Seth Bernard Lakeman (born 26 March 1977) is an English singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who is most often associated with the fiddle and tenor guitar, but also plays the viola and banjo. Nominated for the 2005 Mercury Music Prize ...

Sam Lakeman Samuel Charles Lakeman (born 6 November 1975) is an English musician, songwriter, and producer and co-owner of Charcoal Records. Lakeman was brought up in the village of Buckland Monachorum, near Yelverton, Devon, Yelverton, Devon, United King ...

and

Sean Lakeman Sean Lakeman (born 29 January 1974) is an English folk musician and record producer. Early life Sean was born and brought up as the first of three boys in Buckland Monachorum, near Yelverton, Devon with his brothers, fellow folk musicians S ...

, folk musicians who grew up as brothers in the village.

References

External links

Buckland Monachorum Parish Council

Buckland Monachorum
* {{authority control Villages in the Borough of West Devon