Martin Blake (clergyman)

Rev. Martin Blake, detail from the mural monument he erected to his young son Nicholas Blake (d.1634) in St Peter's Church, Barnstaple
Mural monument to Nicholas Blake (d.1634), 9 year-old son of Rev. Martin Blake, erected by his father in St Peter's Church, Barnstaple
Old Vicarage, Barnstaple, built originally in 1311 at the entrance of Barnstaple Priory. The surviving building, entirely re-built "at his own great charge" by Rev Martin Blake (with 19th c. additions and restorations) today occupies the same site[1]

Rev. Martin Blake (1593-1673) was vicar of Barnstaple in Devon, 1628–56; 1660–73, and suffered much for his adherence to the Royalist cause during the English Civil War, as related in John Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy (1714).[2][3] According to Chanter (1882), "The eventful history of the Rev. Martin Blake has been often written in public history and local annals".[4]

  1. ^ Chanter, p.51
  2. ^ Walker, folios 332-360
  3. ^ See also: Chanter, J.R., Memorials Descriptive and Historical, of the Church of St Peter, Barnstaple, with its other ecclesiastical antiquities, and an account of the conventual church of St Mary Magdalene, recently discovered, Barnstaple, 1882, pp.96-8
  4. ^ Chanter, pp.45-6