England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Creacombe St Michael

The Parish

The parish of Creacombe, beware as there is another in south Devon not a parish, lies in the northern portion of central Devon roughly 8 miles southeast of the small market town of South Molton. Creacombe is located a little over 2 miles south of the A361 (North Devon Linkway) that links South Molton with Tiverton & onward to the M5 motorway. There is very little to Creacombe and it has always been such, a mere hamlet of a few farms and cottages lying in the valley of the Sturcombe River and with properties either side of said river. Most of the parishes in this area were largely engaged in pastoral farming and then as now that is the main focus of the economy of Creacombe too. The Sturcombe River drains the parish southwards soon joining the headwaters of the Little Dart which turns westwards to meet the Taw at Chulmleigh and thence to its estuary through the port of Barnstaple. Creacombe stands in rather rolling countryside, the forerunners of nearby Exmoor, at around 190 metres above the sea many local heights top 250 metres with Bickham Moor at 283 metres the highest nearby point. Creacombe parish was one of the smallest in its county, covering just 1,050 acres it would have barely supported 50 parishioners. In Domesday times Creacombe was an equally small holding of Baldwin the Sheriff offering just a pair of ploughs and some meadows, pastures and woodland.

The Church

St Michael's church has been deconsecrated and sold as a private home, consequently it is not readily accessible to view. The church stands behind a farm on the eastern side of the Sturcombe River. The church is not, however, that in which these marriages took place having been completely rebuilt in 1857. A simple and small church of nave & lower chancel augmented with a southern porch and with roof boundary of chancel and nave topped by a bell-gable. The church did have a Norman font of the late 11th or early 12th century. As the church is styled in that of the Early English Gothic it perhaps indicates that style being in the demolished medieval church.