Offwell
| Offwell | |
| Devon | |
|---|---|
 Offwell, St Mary's Church | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SY195996 |
| Location: | 50°47’26"N, 3°8’36"W |
| Data | |
| Post town: | Honiton |
| Postcode: | EX14 |
| Dialling code: | 01404 |
| Local Government | |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
East Devon |
Offwell is a village Devon, in the east of the county sime two miles south-east of the nearest town, Honiton. It can be found off the A35 road.
Offwell is a small village with a primary school and a post office. The village sits next to the Offwell woodland, which has its own wildlife trust.[1]
Parish church
The mediæval church of St Mary has a chancel arch, one chancel window and a south doorway which date from c. 1200. There are a west tower, a north aisle and a north chapel. Features of interest include the early 18th-century pulpit and reader's desk, the Lord's Prayer and creed mural painting, and some Jacobean carvings.[2]
History
Offwell House, built in 1830, was the residence of Edward Copleston, Bishop of Llandaff.[2] The Copleston family arrived in the parish in the late 18th Century and provided many of its Rectors from 1772 to 1954. They transformed the village and parish with their generosity and influence.[3]
Because of the complexities of its mediæval past, Offwell had no Lord of the Manor and so the church was the focus of authority. This authority was wielded not only by its Rectors, who varied greatly in their commitment to the parish, but also by its landowners who served as churchwardens, and sometimes as overseers of the poor, by rotation.[3]
Theere is a small etate in the parish to the west of Offwell village, called Colwell Wood. There is only one property situated there today, a seemingly insignificant cottage known as Colwell Wood Cottage. As a small estate Colwell’s history can be traced back to the Domesday Book. As a small part in much larger estates it passed through the hands of the great aristocratic families of de Courtenay, Hungerford and Hastings. During the Wars of the Roses, and the period of Yorkist rule between 1461 and 1485, it was held by Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who finally became King Richard III.
The history of the estate is complex, since the estate was fragmented, with different pieces of the jigsaw changing hands fairly frequently.
Admiral Sir Thomas Graves, who was second in command to Lord Nelson at the Battle of Copenhagen (1801), bought Colwell Wood in 1798 for £1,210, and in 1805 he gave it to his daughter Mary, who built the Cottage, the only building present.
The parish’s most famous son, Edward Copleston, Bishop of Llandaff, in 1825 wrote to a friend:
Natural history is the food of my vacation hours, and I shall take your precious volume with me when I next go to saunter and ramble in my Offwell woods. It would do my heart good to have you one day to join me in those rambles over the scenes of my infancy ...
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Offwell) |
References
- ↑ "Conservation". http://www.offwell.free-online.co.uk/conserva.htm. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Nikolaus Pevsner: Pevsner Architectural Guides
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 'A History of Offwell Church and Parish, Devon' (Debrett Ancestry Research Ltd, 2009)