England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
East Portlemouth St Winwaloe

The Parish

The parish of East Portlemouth lies in the extreme south of Devon, indeed it forms part of Devon's English Channel coastline. East Portlemouth is located about 6 miles south of the market town of Kingsbridge and sits on the eastern side of the Kingsbridge Estuary opposite to the port of Salcombe to which it is connected by a small ferry. East Portlemouth is a small village built in an attractive fall down the steeply descending slopes of the estuary, it is some miles from the nearest numbered road (the A379 which connects Kingsbridge with Dartmouth) and is a relatively remote community even today. The main employment at the time of this transcript would have been divided between land & sea, the latter providing fishing and the former a mixture of pastoral farming and orchard growing, a notable feature at the time. Today much employment comes from tourism and part of the South West Coastal Trail runs through East Portlemouth parish. As a coastal parish there is little drainage other than short streams headed for the nearby estuary. East Portlemouth rises from sea level to around 110 metres by the church in just a few hundred yards, a formidable slope indeed. By the standards of south Devon East Portlemouth parish was fairly typically sized, it covered just over 1,700 acres and supported a population of just over 400 parishioners. There is no specific mention of East Portlemouth in Domesday Book.

The Church

St Winwaloe's church sits at the top of the steep slope which largely comprises the village, just where that slope levels out onto the plateau that forms the spine of this part of south Devon. The church has an origin in the 14th century but little remains from that time, the building was extensively changed in both 15th and 19th centuries. The form is quite unusual with a cruciform layout formed by the transepts but with a western tower rather than the normal crossing tower of that format. Despite its unusual layout there is clearly little of architectural interest in the building as Pevsner dismisses it in just 5 lines. The church stands at a junction of lanes, both leading by differing routes to East Prawle, and its top of slope position gives it commanding views of the estuary below. The site is surrounded by a local stone wall which is topped by a thin hedge. The churchyard is open and there are no restrictions to photography.