Plympton St Mary, Devon Genealogy

England Devon

Parish History


"PLYMPTON ST MARY adjoins Plympton-Earl, and is an extensive parish, on the east side of the vale of the river Plym, from 3 to 5 miles N.E. of Plymouth. It contains 9984A. of land, and 2757 inhabitants. It has no village of its own name, but includes those of RIDGWAY, UNDERWOOD, and COLEBROOK, and the hamlets of Hemerdon, Sparkwell, Venton, and part of Lee Mill Bridge. . . The Earl of Morley is lord of the manor and barony of Plympton, and resides at SALTRAM, a stately mansion, in an extensive and finely wooded park, on the east side of the river Plym, about 2 miles E.N.E. of Plymouth. . . A great part of the parish of Plympton St. Mary belongs to Geo. Strode, R.Z. Mudge, E. Tolcher, H.H. Treby, Geo. Woollcombe, G.W. Saltau, and Wm. Bratton, Esqrs., Mrs. Symons, and several smaller freeholders, most of whom have pleasant seats here. The Earl of Morley owns Colebrook, which came to his family with the heiress of the Mayhews. Hemerdon House is the seat of Geo. Woollcombe, Esq. Newnham, the ancient seat of the Newnhams and Strodes, is now a farmhouse; but the mansion in Newnham Park, built about the beginning of last century, is the handsome residence of Geo. Strode, Esq.,. . The Church of Plympton St. Mary was anciently the conventual church of the Priory. It is a spacious and handsome structure, built at the period when a mixture of the decorated and perpendicular styles prevailed. . . in the incumbency of the Rev. W.J. Coppard, M.A. There are small Wesleyan Chapels at Ridgway and Lee Mill Bridge. There are large NATIONAL SCHOOLS at Ridgway and Sparkwell. . ." [From White's Devonshire Directory (1850)]

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is FreeBMD.

Church records
Contributor: Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts and other types of church records, such as parish chest records. Add the contact information for the office holding the original records. Add links to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection

Census records


Transcriptions of some of the censuses records for Plympton St Mary parish can be found at http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/PlymptonStMary/index.html#Census

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Devon Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Maps and Gazetteers
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
Contributor: add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.

Information about Plympton St. Mary Parish, in Devon, England and past residents may be found on the Online Parish Clerk pages at http://cornwood-opc.com/psmary/home