Haccombe

Haccombe
St Blaise's Church
Haccombe is located in Devon
Haccombe
Haccombe
Location within Devon
Civil parish
District
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
List of places
UK
England
Devon
50°31′15″N 3°33′22″W / 50.52083°N 3.55611°W / 50.52083; -3.55611
Haccombe House in 2017

Haccombe is a village and former civil parish and historic manor, now in the parish of Haccombe with Combe, in the Teignbridge district, in the county of Devon, England. It is situated 2 1/2 miles east of Newton Abbot, in the south of the county. It is possibly the smallest parish in England, and was said in 1810 to be remarkable for containing only two inhabited houses, namely the manor house known as Haccombe House and the parsonage.[1] Haccombe House is a "nondescript Georgian structure" (Pevsner), rebuilt shortly before 1795[2] by the Carew family on the site of an important mediaeval manor house.[3] In 1881 the parish had a population of 14.[4] On 25 March 1885 the parish was abolished and merged with Combe in Teignhead and to form "Haccombe with Combe".[5]

Next to the house is the small parish church dedicated to Saint Blaise, remarkable not only for the many ancient stone sculpted effigies and monumental brasses it contains,[6] amongst the best in Devon,[3] but also because the incumbent has the rare title of Archpriest and is accountable not to the local bishop (Bishop of Exeter), as are all other parish churches in Devon, but to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The archpresbytery was established in 1341 with six clergy; only the archpriest survived at the Reformation.[7] The ecclesiastical parish is now combined with that of Stoke-in-Teignhead with Combe-in-Teignhead.

  1. ^ Risdon, p.377
  2. ^ New Georgian house at Haccombe painted by Swete in July 1795, see: Gray, Todd & Rowe, Margery (Eds.), Travels in Georgian Devon: The Illustrated Journals of The Reverend John Swete, 1789–1800, 4 vols., Tiverton, 1999, Vol.2, p.159; built "in about 1800" per Pevsner, Nikolaus & Cherry, Bridget, The Buildings of England: Devon, London, 2004, p.464
  3. ^ a b Hoskins, W.G., A New Survey of England: Devon, London, 1959 (first published 1954), p.402
  4. ^ "Population statistics Haccombe AP/CP through time". A Vision of Britain through Time. Retrieved 31 March 2023.
  5. ^ "Okehampton Registration District". UKBMD. Retrieved 31 March 2023.
  6. ^ Pevsner, p.464
  7. ^ John Carnell (February 2008). Will of Archpriest of Haccombe. Read Books. ISBN 9781408680261. Retrieved 9 June 2009.