Sampford Peverell

 From White's Devonshire Directory of 1850

"SAMPFORD PEVERELL, a well built and pleasant village, near the Grand Western Canal and Bristol and Exeter Railway, 5 1/2 miles E.N.E. of Tiverton, and 9 miles S.W. of Wellington, has in its parish 857 inhabitants, and about 2000 acres of land.

It has a great fair for cattle, sheep, and horses, on the Monday before the last Wednesday in April, and had formerly a large woollen manufactory.

The manor, anciently belonging to the Peverells, and afterwards to the Dinham, Aisthorpe, and Powlett families, was sold with the demesne by the late Earl Powlett, to various freeholders. Sampford Barton, was for a long period the seat of the Powletts, . . .

A Castle was built here by Oliver Dinham, about 1437, and its remains were cleared away about 1755.

The Church (St. John.) is an ancient structure, with a tower and five bells, and contains a monument of Lady Powlett, who died in 1602. The rectory, valued in K.B. at £23. 8s. 11 1/2d., and in 1831 at £320, is in the patronage of Dr. Lemann, and incumbency of the Rev. A. Boulton, D.D., who has 15A. of glebe, and a good residence, erected in lieu of the old one, by the Canal Company, at the cost of about £1500. . . ."

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History of Sampford

Devon is unique in England as being the only County to be twinned with a County in France. 1971 saw the signing of the Twinning Charter between Devon County Council and the Conseil General of Calvados, in Normandy, which was aimed at supporting, through twinning, the development of social and cultural links between the two regions.

Over 70 towns and villages in Devon are now twinned with similar communities in Calvados alone as a result of the efforts of ordinary people as well as a host of other links between individuals, schools and other bodies.