Holcombe Rogus is a village,

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 ...

and ecclesiastical

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

in the English 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 ...

. In 2001 the population of the parish was 503.

Name

The first element of the place-name is derived from

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

for a deep or hollow coomb (valley) and the second element refers to the holder of the land – at the time of 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 ...

(1086) the tenant was Rogo or Rogus.

Geography

The northern boundary of the parish forms part of the county boundary with

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

and clockwise from the east it is bordered by the Devon parishes of

Culmstock Culmstock is a village and civil parish in Mid Devon, England, centred 10 miles from Tiverton and 6 NE of Cullompton. It is laid out on both sides of the River Culm; the village is joined by a single old narrow stone bridge across the river. The ...

Burlescombe Burlescombe (, ) is a village and civil parish in the Mid Devon district of Devon, England. The parish is surrounded, clockwise from the north, by the parishes of Holcombe Rogus, Culmstock, Uffculme, Halberton and Sampford Peverell. According to ...

Sampford Peverell Sampford Peverell is a village and civil parish in Mid-Devon, England. An old Saxon settlement, it was called Sanforda in the 1086 Domesday Book. Its current name reflects its inclusion in the Honour of Peverel, the lands of William Peverel a ...

, and

Hockworthy Hockworthy is a village and civil parish in Devon, England. Its name is Old English and means "Hocca's enclosure". It has a church dedicated to St. Simon and St. Jude which was mostly rebuilt in 1865, and contains a Norman font In metal t ...

History

At the time of the Domesday survey of 1086, Holcombe Rogus was assessed at 43 households under the tenancy of Baldwin the Sheriff, and included ploughlands, meadows, pasture, woodland, livestock and two mills, altogether valued at an annual £10. By 1812, progress was being made with the construction of the

Grand Western Canal The Grand Western Canal ran between Taunton in Somerset and Tiverton, Devon, Tiverton in Devon in the United Kingdom. The canal had its origins in various plans, going back to 1796, to link the Bristol Channel and the English Channel by a canal ...

, but it was hampered by rock cuttings at Holcombe Rogus, from which springs of water gushed, and there was a need to line some sections with puddle clay to prevent leakage. Lime kilns were constructed to provide the materials, which can still be seen beside the canal, close to the Waytown Tunnel. In White's ''Devonshire Directory'' of 1850, the parish was , and had a population of 843. A market and fair, granted in 1343, were no longer held.

Holcombe Court

The

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal mea ...

known as Holcombe Court was the seat of the Bluett family for centuries. It is situated to the immediate west of the parish church, hidden behind a high boundary wall, and was described by

W. G. Hoskins William George Hoskins (22 May 1908 – 11 January 1992) was an English local historian who founded the first university department of English Local History. His great contribution to the study of history was in the field of landscape history. ...

as "perhaps the finest Tudor house in Devon". Hoskins, W.G., ''A New Survey of England: Devon'', Newton Abbot: David & Charles. New edition, 1972.

Parish church

The parish church is dedicated to All Saints and is predominantly 15th-century. It contains several monuments to the Bluett family, including the 1615 tomb of Richard Bluett, his wife, Mary and their eleven children. There are also several mural monuments of the 18th century.

References

External links

Devon County Council community pageHistorical information and sources on GENUKI
* {{authority control Villages in Devon Grand Western Canal Lime kilns in England