Sheepstor 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 former manor on the western side of

Dartmoor Dartmoor is an upland area in southern Devon, South West England. The moorland and surrounding land has been protected by National Park status since 1951. Dartmoor National Park covers . The granite that forms the uplands dates from the Carb ...

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. In 2001, its population was 53, down from 95 in 1901. For administrative purposes the parish is grouped with the parishes of Meavy and Walkhampton to form Burrator Parish Council, and for electoral purposes it is grouped with the same two parishes to form Burrator

Ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...

. Burrator Reservoir, constructed in 1898, is to the north of the village and forms part of the northern boundary of the parish. The name ''Sheepstor'' has evolved considerably since the first reference to a settlement here which was recorded in a

pipe roll The Pipe rolls, sometimes called the Great rollsBrown ''Governance'' pp. 54–56 or the Great Rolls of the Pipe, are a collection of financial records maintained by the English Exchequer, or HM Treasury, Treasury, and its successors, as well a ...

of 1168 as ''Sitelestorra''. In a document of 1262, it was ''Skytelestor'', ''Shittestorre'' in 1474, ''Shistor'' in 1547 and in c. 1620 Tristram Risdon called it ''Shetelstor now Shepstor''. The name probably derives from the

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 ...

''scyttel(s)'' meaning a bar or bolt, reflecting the shape of the nearby Sheeps

Tor Tor, TOR or ToR may refer to: Places * Toronto, Canada ** Toronto Raptors * Tor, Pallars, a village in Spain * Tor, former name of Sloviansk, Ukraine, a city * Mount Tor, Tasmania, Australia, an extinct volcano * Tor Bay, Devon, England * Tor ...

Manor

The manor of Sheepstor was held by the

Scudamore family The Scudamore (or de Scudamore) family is an English people, English noble family. The family settled in Herefordshire at two seats, Holme Lacy and Kentchurch Court, before lines moved to Devon, Somerset and Derbyshire. The family first gained pr ...

, whose heirs were the Elford family.

Sheepstor Church

The village church, dedicated to St Leonard, is built of granite and dates from the 15th century, though a

chapelry A chapelry was a subdivision of an ecclesiastical parish in England and parts of Lowland Scotland up to the mid 19th century. Status A chapelry had a similar status to a Township (England), township, but was so named as it had a chapel of ease ...

was first documented here in 1240. The church contains a fine

rood screen The rood screen (also choir screen, chancel screen, or jubé) is a common feature in late medieval church architecture. It is typically an ornate partition between the chancel and nave, of more or less open tracery constructed of wood, stone, o ...

which was reconstructed in 1914 by the then vicar Hugh Breton from drawings made of the original that had been removed in a 19th-century restoration. Buried in the churchyard are

James Brooke James Brooke (29 April 1803 – 11 June 1868), was a British soldier and adventurer who founded the Raj of Sarawak in Borneo. He ruled as the first White Rajahs, White Rajah of Sarawak from 1841 until his death in 1868. Brooke was born and ra ...

, Charles Brooke and

Charles Vyner Brooke Charles Vyner Brooke, (full name Charles Vyner de Windt Brooke, 26 September 1874 – 9 May 1963) was the third and last White Rajah of the Raj of Sarawak. Early life Charles Vyner Brooke was the son of Charles Brooke and Margaret de Windt ( ...

, the three

White Rajahs The White Rajahs of Sarawak were a hereditary monarchy of the Brooke family, who founded and ruled the Raj of Sarawak as a sovereign state, located on the northwest coast of the island of Borneo in Maritime Southeast Asia, from 1841 to 1946. Of ...

of the Sarawak kingdom, in modern-day

Sarawak Sarawak ( , ) is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia. It is the largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia. Sarawak is located in East Malaysia in northwest Borneo, and is ...

(now part of

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

), as well as Bertram Willes Dayrell Brooke, another member of the Brooke family. The graves of the Rajahs have been designated Grade II listed monuments by English Heritage. There are currently six bells in the church tower, five of which were cast in 1769, with a sixth hung in 1904; one of the older bells has inscribed on it the words 'I call the quick to church and the dead to grave'. A local legend tells that the bell ropes of the church were once tied together and lowered into Crazywell Pool, 3.6 km to the north east of Sheepstor, in order to determine the depth. According to the legend the ropes descended as much as 90 fathoms without reaching the bottom, causing people to believe the pool is bottomless. The church has been renovated several times, the most thorough of which was in 1861 at a cost of £590.

Sheeps Tor

Sheeps Tor, from which the village is named, is a prominent outcrop about half a mile north east of the village. The summit is 369m above sea level and it is one of the area's most prominent tors.

Sheepstor in popular culture

In 2010 Sheepstor was one of the filming locations for the

Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg ( ; born December 18, 1946) is an American filmmaker. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, Spielberg is widely regarded as one of the greatest film directors of all time and is ...

film '' War Horse'', and the village with its prominent church tower features in an aerial shot in the trailer for the film which was released on 29 June 2011.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Devon Dartmoor