England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Petrockstowe St Petroc

The Parish

The parish of Petrockstowe (spellings vary but here we follow the UK Ordnance Survey spelling) lies in western Devon about 6 miles south of the market town of Great Torrington. Petrockstowe is a long thin straggle of a village lying, in lanes, about 2 miles west of the A386 road which connects Great Torrington with Okehampton. Petrockstowe sits on a ridge of land with extensive views eastwards over the valley formed by the Little Mere River, a valley extensively worked for clay. Other than the extractive businesses the economy, like much of Devon, would have been underpinned by dairy farming, albeit on early gazetteers almost a third of the acreage was described as "waste". A pair of small becks runs down to the Little Mere River which heads northwards to join the Torridge and hence the Irish Sea through the latter's estuary at Bideford. The village rises in height from North Town at around 100 metres to close to 130 metres at the southern end, the ridge continues to rise westwards reaching close to 170 metres nearby. By the standards of this area of Devon Petrockstowe parish was on the large size, it covered just over 3,000 acres and would have supported close to 600 parishioners. In Domesday times Petrockstowe was a holding of Buckfast Abbey and a relatively small settlement offering just 3 ploughs amid meadows and extensive pastures & woodland.

The Church

St Petroc's church sits on the western side of the main lane running north to south through the length of the village, it sits towards the southern, higher, end. Sadly the church was almost completely rebuilt in 1879 and Pevsner states, rather bluntly, that the church is of "little architectural interest". Despite these changes wrought by the Victorians some pieces of original fabric do remain, scant evidence exists of a 12th century Norman building but more substantial evidence of the Perpendicular era rebuilding. The northern aisle arcade is 14th century whilst the western tower is 15th. The church is set back behind properties where a broad parking area has been constructed. A gate leads to a pathway and the extensive churchyard which has few obstacles to photography.