Kelly's Directory of Devon, 1902

HIGH BICKINGTON is a parish and village, 3 miles west from Portsmouth Arms station on the North Devon branch of the London and South Western railway, 8 east from Great Torrington and 9 south from Barnstaple, in the Northern division of the county, hundred of North Tawton, petty sessional division, union and county court district of Torrington, rural deanery of Torrington, archdeaconry of Barastaple and diocese of Exeter. A tributary of the river Taw runs through the parish. The church of St. Mary is a building of stone in the Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel, nave, north aisle, south transept, south porch and an embattled tower, with pinnacles, containing a clock and 6 bells, all cast in 1753 except the first, which dates from 1827 : the chancel retains a piscina and 3 canopied sedilia, and the east window is stained : in the south transept, now used as a vestry, part of the staircase to the rood loft is still existing : there is a font of Norman date, and the south doorway, which is of the same period, has a stoup : some good carved woodwork also remains : the church was restored during the period 1876-91, at a cost of £900, and affords 250 sittings. The register of baptisms and burials dates from the year 1707; marriages, 1754. The living is a rectory, net yearly value £460, including 170 acres of glebe, with residence, in the gift of trustees, and held since 1897 by the Rev. Cecil Vaughan Wansbrough M.A. of Pembroke College, Cambridge. The rectory, a substantial modern residence, with well-wooded grounds, stands on an eminence overlooking the Taw Valley, which affords an extensive view of the beautiful scenery of the neighbourhood. Here are Baptist and Bible Christian chapels. A Fair is held yearly the first monday after May 14th. The charities are of £10 yearly value. The rector is lord of the manor. The Pincombe trustees and Robert Greenwood Penny esq. are the chief landowners. Seckingtom belongs to the trustees of the late Francis Baring Short esq. J.P. (d. 1899), Little Silver to Capt. Francis Alexander Barton: other owners are Henry Mallet Veale esq. of Passaford, and the Hon. Mark G. K. Rolle, of Bicton. The soil is heavy ; subsoil, clay. The chief crops are oats and wheat. The area is 4,209 acres of land and 24 of water ; rateable value, £3,067 ; the population in 1901 was 533 in the civil, and 525 in the ecclesiastical parish.

By Local Government Board Order 14,972, Langley Barton was transferred from this parish to Yarncombe, March 24, 1884, for civil purposes.

Parish Clerk, Thomas Milford.

Post & M. O. O., S. B. & Annuity & Insurance Office.— Wm. Hy. Richards, sub-postmaster. Letters through Chulmleigh by mail cart, received at 8.15 a.m. ; dis- patched at 5.15 p.m. The nearest telegraph office is at Umberleigh station, 3 miles distant

National Endowed School (mixed), built in 1856, & enlarged in 1874, to hold 135 children; average attendance, 90 ; Walter Ham, master ; the school has an endowment of £50 a year awarded in 1855 by a decree of the Court of Chancery out of the Pincombe trust estates, as an endowment for education in this school in the principles of the Established Church.