Community
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS PAGE IS CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Parishscapes Update 2010 - The Story so far
It has been a very busy and successful year for the Parishscapes Project. The work on the tithe maps and their apportionment is now
99% complete and has been particularly welcomed by schools, who have utilised the information for school projects in conjunction with
talks given by Philippe Planel, Parishscapes Officer. We are continually grateful to all the volunteers who have given their time to produce
this information.
Another new project, which evolved from the publication of the tithe maps, is the Disappeared Houses project. This has proved to be
extremely popular and a research group with representatives from Northleigh, Branscombe, Ottery St Mary and Uplyme met on
1 December 2009. One of the outcomes from this meeting was the setting up of a standard recording sheet, which was later successfully
trialled by Dave Seward and Ron Woodcock in Northleigh. This Disappeared Houses Recording Sheet can be used by any parish and when completed, will
give a quick overview of a 'Disappeared House'.
A plan to excavate a ruined farmhouse on land in Northleigh is now well underway and we hope that it will give some answers as to why
people abandoned their homes and where they went.
There was also an exploration of a second valley in Offwell which led to a volunteer clearance party working on the site of another
disappeared house, more information on this later.
An unusual archaeology excavation, led by Professor Christopher Tilley, Professor of Material Culture in the Department of Anhropology
at University College London and aided by Parishscapes Volunteers, took place at the end of August. The sites excavated were two pebble
cairns at Colaton Raleigh Common and a series of ring ditches and structures at Aylesbeare Common. This dig was part of the East Devon
Pebblebed Landscape project - for more information about this project visit www.pebblebedsproject.org.uk/ .
Land Owning in Victorian East Budleigh - the Technical / IT division of Parishscapes has recently achieved another breakthrough in getting
the tithe apportionment to talk to the tithe map! Click on this link to see an illustration of the 1840 parish of East Budleigh (includes the
modern parish of Budleigh Salterton, created in the late 19th Century). The map shows the top ten landowners in the parish at that time,
a landscape dominated by the Rolle Estate. The empty spaces on the map are smaller landowners who fall outside the top ten band..
We are now looking forward to the final Parishscapes Conference which is due to be held on 17 April at the Norman Lockyer Observatory
and entitled "Figures in the Landscape" - for more information click here.