Revd. G.D. Melhuish - Notes on the History of Ashwater Parish and Church

Important People.

It might be asked, what important people have lived in the Parish, and, during the several hundred years of its history are there any outstanding names? In answer, we can safely say that the inhabitants have lived just ordinary countryside lives. Farmers, Artizans, Labourers, Parsons. Humdrum lives some would call them, but I object to the use of the word “ hum-drum” in a contemptuous sense, for every life is full of interest both to the human being responsible for it and to many neighbours and friends. Life in the country, to my thinking, is less likely to be dull and far less likely to be squalid than life in the city. Ashwater, without doubt, has had its share of Romance, Excitement, Happiness and Tragedy. But the parish, for most of the time at any rate, has had no resident Lord of the Manor living in a big Manor house and helping to keep touch with wider interests.

Whether the Carminows actually lived here at any time seems uncertain, but I think that Joan, who married Halnathan Mauleverer, probably did, as the Carminow monument and other work in the Church suggest that it was done by one who had that interest in the place which usually only comes from residence. You may remember that I noted that her son, Nicholas Carew, child of her first marriage, was buried at Westminster Abbey and that her brother-in-law, Hugh Courtenay, was killed at the Battle of Tewkesbury. So there we are linked up to the burial place of Great Englishmen and to the Wars of the Roses and the far away middle ages of English History.

Then Mr. Powell, late of Buckland Filleigh, who was a great authority on Parish Registers, points out that entries in our earliest Registers show that the Anthony Muncke who married Mistress Mary Arscott, in Ashwater Church in 1568 had a son, Thomas Muncke (Baptized at Ashwater, 1570), who became grandfather to the famous George Monk, who played such a leading part in the Civil War and was the chief instrument in bringing back the King in 1660. He was, in consequence, made Duke of Albemarle. The Monks are from Potheridge in Merton. Where Anthony Muncke lived in Ashwater no one knows. I used to think he lived at Ashwater Arscott, but I am told that his wife was one of the Tetcott Arscotts who came from the Holsworthy estate of that name, so that theory is upset.

Anthony Monk’s first wife was buried here in 1574. Their other children Baptized at Ashwater were :—Frances, who married Sir Lewis Stucley; Richard, afterwards a Captain; Humphry, a Judge in Ireland, and Mary, who died an infant.

I have already spoken of the Shorts who had a lease of the Manor of Ashwater. The Carys never lived here, as far as I know, except Thomas Cary, Rector from 1370 to 1382. When they lived at Tor Abbey I don’t suppose they came here very often. My father used to tell me that Mr. Leach, of Blagdon, had the Manor shooting in the early part of the nineteenth century and used to send a man every year to Tor Abbey with a basket of woodcocks. The messenger would walk to Torquay one day and back the next.

One or two of the Rectors were rather prominent men— as you will see on referring to the list—e.g., Richard Gyfford, 1383, who was Commissary General for the Bishop for some years and a Canon of St. Crantock. John Lugans, 13-6, Chancellor of the Diocese; Edward Dauntesey, 1406, who became Bishop of Meath, and Robert Lawe, 1581, Treasurer of Exeter Cathedral. Amongst all that long catalogue of people baptised, married or buried here, there may well be others who went out into the big world and made their mark but whose doings have not been traced back to Ashwater origin. If any reader knows of such I should like to be informed.