Diptford 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

South Hams South Hams is a non-metropolitan district, local government district on the south coast of Devon, England. Its council is based in the town of Totnes, although the largest town is Ivybridge. The district also contains the towns of Dartmouth, ...

district, in the county 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. It is perched on a hill overlooking the River Avon. The name is believed to come from "deep ford", referring to the local site of a river crossing. In 2021 the parish had a population of 612. The village is mentioned in the

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 ...

as one of the settlements in the

Hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numerals, Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 (number), 99 and preceding 101 (number), 101. In mathematics 100 is the square of 10 (number), 10 (in scientific notation it is written as 102). The standar ...

of Diptford. At the centre of the village is a small primary school, the parish hall and the recently redeveloped 14th-century church. A former rector of the village, Rev.

William Gregor William Gregor (25 December 1761 – 11 June 1817) was a British clergyman and mineralogist who discovered the elemental metal Titanium. Early years He was born at the Trewarthenick Estate in Cornwall, the son of Francis Gregor and Mary C ...

, discovered the element

titanium Titanium is a chemical element; it has symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in ...

, which he called manaccanite, in 1791. The Scottish writer John Keir Cross lived in the village and died there in 1967. The Dipford Cross and wall were rebuilt on 23 August 2020, by Aldridge born Craftsman and artist John Clifton.

References

External links

* Civil parishes in South Hams Villages in South Hams {{Devon-geo-stub