Highweek
| Highweek | |
| Devon | |
|---|---|
 All Saints Church, Highweek | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SX846720 |
| Location: | 50°32’13"N, 3°37’43"W |
| Data | |
| Post town: | Newton Abbot |
| Postcode: | TQ12 |
| Dialling code: | 01626 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Teignbridge |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Newton Abbot |
Highweek village which has become a suburb of the town of Newton Abbot, but still retaining its village identity.[1] It was anciently called Teignwick (alias Teyngewike, Tingwike,[2] Teyngewyk, etc.)).
At the northern fringe of the greater town, Highweek is prominent and recognisable due to its high location on a ridge. Its population at the 2011 census was 5,043.[3]
A Norman motte-and-bailey castle was built here, of which only a dyke remains (giving it the local name of "Castle Dyke"), which castle probably remained occupied until the mid 13th century, when the chief residence of the locality became Bradley House.[4]
Geography
Highweek is on a ridge that overlooks Newton Abbot, the Teign Estuary and the Bovey Basin. To the north-west, Haytor and surrounding parts of Dartmoor dominate the skyline, and to the north east the Haldon Hills some nine miles away towards Exeter can be seen.
Immediately north of the village there is the unusual cone shaped hill of Daracombe Beacon that overlooks the ball clay opencast pit of Ringslade Quarry, Howton Road and the 1st Highweek Village Scout Group building. The Beacon has a cluster of trees on its peak and is one of the highest points in Newton Abbot at 270 feet. Another high point immediately north of the road of Gaze Hill contains a hidden covered municipal water tank.
The village gives its name to a geological unit (the Highweek Unit) that extends for at least five miles westwards from the village. The geology underlying Highweek itself is Gurrington slate of Famennian age (a late subdivision of the Devonian period), with small outliers of resistant spilites forming both the ridge on which the church stands and the hills north of the village, such as the aforementioned Daracombe Beacon.[5]
Parish church
The mediæval parish church is dedicated to All Saints, and now a Grade I listed building. It was consecrated in 1428.
Until 1864, the church served as a chapel of ease to the parish church of adjoining Kingsteignton[6][7]
The building of the church in 1427 was at the instance of the local folk. Parishioners had built a chapel at Highweek, but they had to carry their dead about three miles to the parish church in Kingsteignton. They petitioned for their own graveyard because "the tides and rivers, and the mud of winter and the intense heat of summer" made the journey "both troublesome and dangerous to accomplish".[8] Permission came in the form of a papal bull dated 14 May 1427, and the church and its churchyard were consecrated by Edmund Lacy, Bishop of Exeter on 19 April 1428.[8] Until 1864 though it remained a chapel of ease to Kingsteignton.[6]
All Saints has the Bradley aisle which was built by Richard Yarde of Bradley Manor in the 15th century, and it also had a rood screen that was said to be "beautiful" until it was mutilated in 1786 and later removed completely.[9]
The church stands on a steep sided hill at the end of ridge which runs the length of the village, and is clearly visible for miles around facing St Mary's Wolborough Church on the opposite side of Newton Abbot. The battlemented tower on the west end of the nave carries a flag pole and a lit star at Christmas, which can be seen from Newton Abbot town centre.
History
Middle Ages
The original place name, Teignwic is old English for "Teign Village.[10]
The manor is not listed in the Domesday Book of 1086, as it was then a part of the large royal manor of Teintone (now Kingsteignton).[11] In the village is a Norman motte-and-bailey earthwork now known as Castle Dyke,[12] a scheduled monument included in the "At Risk" register,[13] but still standing tall today "...crowned by a single surviving pine."[14]
The manor of Teignwick was given by King Henry II (1154-1189) to "John, the son of Lucas his butler".[2] Following the Norman revolt it was forfeited to the crown and was re-granted by King John (1199-1216) to Eustace de Courtenay,[2] apparentlya relative of Renaud de Courtenay (d.1194), ancestor of the Earls of Devon.
The earliest surviving documentary reference to the manor is as Teyngewike in about 1200.[15] The part of the Teignbridge Hundred, including Teignwick, which lay to the west of the River Teign were owned by the king, and in 1246 King Henry III granted these lands, including Dipford,[16] to Sir Theobald de Englishville[17]
The manor of Teignwick/Highwick was held by the Bushel family for nine generations
Modernity
Newton Bushel combined with New Town of the Abbots (of Torre Abbey) from the south side of the River Lemon to form what became known as Newton Abbot. Highweek is now joined to Newton Abbot.
Today Highweek has a public house called the Highweek Village Inn, a garage, village hall, and a late mediæval church. Within the parish boundary there are two secondary schools with sixth forms, Coombeshead College and Newton Abbot College, and another church: St Mary the Virgin, Abbotsbury. At the meeting point of the road of Highweek Village and Coombeshead Road there are rustic cottages and terraced houses. There was a village post office into the 1990s, opposite the Highweek Inn at the top of Pitt Hill Road, but it is now residential.
Outside links
References
- ↑ 'Village campaigners fight further new homes': Laura Dale in This is South Devon, 18 January 2010
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Pole, p.262
- ↑ "Bradley ward 2011". http://www.ukcensusdata.com/bradley-e05003594#sthash.6quYCyuG.dpbs. Retrieved 18 February 2015.
- ↑ Pevsner, p.589
- ↑ Selwood, E. B. & Edwards, R.A.: 'Geology of the country around Newton Abbot' pages 13, 38–40 (HMSO, 1984) ISBN 0-11-884274-9
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Devon, 1952; 1989 Penguin Books ISBN 978-0-300-09596-8page 584
- ↑ Pole, Sir William: 'Collections Towards a Description of the County of Devon': "High Wike lieth in the parish of Kingstington, but hath a chappell of ease".
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Dunstan, G. R., ed (1971). The Register of Edmund Lacy, Bishop of Exeter, 1420–1455. IV. Devon & Cornwall Record Society. pp. 280–1.
- ↑ Rowe, Chas. R. (1907). South Devon. London: Adam and Charles Black. p. 136. https://archive.org/details/southdevon00rowe.
- ↑ Skeat, Walter W. (1993). The Concise Dictionary of English Etymology (Facsimile reprint of Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1884 ed.). Ware: Wordsworth Reference. p. 561. ISBN 1-85326-311-7.
- ↑ Thorn, Caroline & Frank, (eds.) Domesday Book, (Morris, John, gen.ed.) Vol. 9, Devon, Parts 1 & 2, Phillimore Press, Chichester, 1985, Part 2 (Notes), 1:10
- ↑ Woolner, Diana & Alexander (1953). "Castle Dyke, Highweek, Newton Abbot, Devon". Report & Transactions of the Devonshire Association 85: 133–8.
- ↑ Castle Dyke, Newton Abbot – Register of Heritage at Risk (Historic England)
- ↑ Smith, Paul C (December 2017) The Story of All Saints' Church Highweek (Parish Information leaflet)
- ↑ Place-Names, page 472–73
- ↑ Risdon, Tristram: 'A Survey of Devon' (1632)
- ↑ Thorn & Thorn, Part 2 (Notes), 1:10
- S. G. Harris (1884). "Notes on the History of Highweek". Report & Transactions of the Devonshire Association 16: 435–43. (Note that much of the early history related in this article has been superseded by later research.)
- S. G. Harris (1884). "Highweek: Gleanings from a Parish Chest". Report & Transactions of the Devonshire Association 16: 662–9.