England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
North Bovey St John

The Parish

The parish of North Bovey lies in south central Devon about 2 miles southwest of the large village of Moretonhampstead and on the eastern fringes of Dartmoor. North Bovey sits a little over a mile south of the B3212 road which crosses the Moor southwestwards from Moretonhampstead to Princetown and Yelverton. North Bovey is a small and compact village sitting on the eastern banks of the Rover Bovey with most properties clustered around its delightful village green. This bucolic scene would not have been the case in past times, North Bovey was one of the centres for tin mining and the Vittifer & Birch Tor mines, sitting on the B3212, were amongst the largest such mines on Dartmoor, closed nowadays the local landscape is pockmarked by shafts and industrial heritage. Beyond the extractive industries North Bovey would have been a pastoral farming community, cattle in the valley and sheep upon the moor. Today North Bovey earns much of its living from tourism, fishing on the Bovey and hiking of the Dartmoor and Two Moors Ways being very popular and several plush hotels dot the village. The River Bovey flows southeastwards to Newton Abbot where it meets the Teign forming the latter's estuary before reaching the English Channel. North Bovey is very much an upland settlement, sitting at around 220 metres above the sea, land, however, rises steeply onto Dartmoor to North Bovey's west reaching 439 metres on nearby Easdon Tor with its Whooping Rock and 529 metres beyond on Hameldown Tor. Upland parishes are often rather large in extent and North Bovey followed that trend, covering 4,300 acres it would have supported a population of close to 650 parishioners. In Domesday times North BOvey was a much smaller place, held by one Iudhael of Totnes it could offer just 6 ploughs together with the usual meadows, pasture and woodland.

The Church

St John's church sits towards the southwest of the village green at the top of the slope descending to the River Bovey. The church consists of three distinct ages, the earliest phase still remaining is that of the chancel which is of the 13th century. Much else dates from a rebuilding during that great church-building era of the Perpendicular style. The window tracery is characteristic of that period despite being renewed during later restorations. The mighty granite western tower, built of huge ashlar blocks, stands as testament to the local landscape with the blocks hewn from the nearby moor. Various restorations took place with the most significant in the early 20th century but all left the basic structure intact. A small and free village car park sits just east of the church which is accessed up a sloping tarred pathway passing in front of houses to a lychgate from here a path cuts diagonally across the churchyard to the church. The churchyard is open and uncluttered with few obstacles for the photographer.