The Meaning and History of Indio

The Devon Historian, vol. 85, 2016
The Meaning and History of Indio in Bovey Tracey, and the Legend of its Nunnery
FRANCES BILLINGE

Introduction

Indio is a Grade II listed, Tudor-style, Victorian house built on a woodland site in the parish of Bovey Tracey, South Devon, just over a mile from the centre of the ancient borough (Figure 1).

indio3-photo

Figure 1. Indio House. Reproduced courtesy of David Lewis, Bovey Tracey, from his private collection

Local guide books state that there was probably a medieval nunnery situated here, although a detailed examination of sources relating to the history of Indio tells us something different as this article will show.1 From 1216 there was an outlying grange farm on the site, owned by St John’s Hospital, Bridgwater. Connection with the distant religious house in Somerset ended at the dissolution of the monasteries, and in 1536 Indio was granted to John Southcott and John Tregonwell. John Southcott built his family seat there and became Lord of the Manor of Bovey Tracey. A pottery business was developed on the site between 1750 and 1836. In the twentieth century some of the land was developed for housing and holiday lodges.
The meaning of ‘Indio’

The name Indio, which is sometimes written as Indeo or In Deo, is intriguing. The assertion by local historians since the late nineteenth century that Indio derives from Latin, and meant ‘House of God’ has persisted, although this is not an accurate translation.2 The land was not listed separately in the Domesday survey as it was then part of Adenobovi, now called Little Bovey. A medieval house was sited at Little Bovey, but there were only insubstantial farm buildings at Indio. J. E. B. Gover, A. Mawer, and F. M. Stenton in their comprehensive study of place names in Devon showed that in Patent Rolls and other documents Indio was variously referred to as Yondeyeo, Judeyeo, Indiho, Yonyeo, Yondyeo, Yenyeo or Judyeo, and it was not until the early nineteenth century that the name Indeo, with a possible Latin religious inference, was cited. Gover found the earliest references to Yondeyeo in the Letters Patent of 1544, and as Judeyo in 1547. The Letters Domestic of 1765 referred to Indeho, and Benjamin Donne’s map of Devon (also 1765) used Indiho, which on Christopher and John Greenwood’s 1827 map of Devon became Indeo.3

Gover described Indio as meaning ‘[place] beyond the water’. He presented examples of numerous Devon place names which are formed with a prefixed prepositional phrase and in which the first element is the Old English ‘begeondan, begeonde’, as in ‘Indio’, from ‘begeondam ea’ meaning ‘on the far side of the river’. The ‘yeo’ element is a common stream name throughout Devon. Gover suggested that in all cases the place would be named by people in the nearest village or large settlement. The site of Indio fits with such a description as it is about a mile from the historic borough of Bovey Tracey on the slope of a hill above the river valley (Figure 2), and the naming is consistent with that made by people in similar places.4 More recent authors studying English place names support ‘begeondon’ as meaning beyond, and in many modern forms becoming ‘Indi’ for ‘on the other side of the valley’ – hence Indio. The Bovey Tracey example would have started as the description begeondan [y]eo, contracting to Yondyeo, and finally becoming the modern form Indio.5

 

yonder-best-indio

Figure 2. View from the River Bovey Bridge uphill to the woods surrounding Indio House. F. Billinge 2015.
The history of Indio

The thirteenth century was a period of expanding trade and development in Bovey (Tracey), and borough status was granted during this period. Although the Tracy family were lords of the manor the name Tracy, or Tracey, was not recorded as part of the place name until 1337. In 1219 Eva de Tracy, was granted permission by Henry III to hold a weekly market at the manor, and a charter allowing an annual fair was awarded fifty years later.6 In 1219 Henry de Tracy, Lord of the Manor of Bovey (Tracey), granted its parish church and some lands, including Indio, to St John’s Hospital Bridgwater, this endowment was re-confirmed in 1227 and maintained until the time of the dissolution of the monasteries.7 Granting a parish church and lands to a religious house in another county was not unusual in the late twelfth century. Such grants were one of the ways for the donor to ensure that prayers were offered up for his soul after death, which in the religious culture of the time was believed to lessen the time spent in Purgatory for purification from sin, thereby hastening the entry into heaven. By the later 1100s a quarter of all parish churches were owned by religious houses, and grange farms were developed in the later medieval period to provide them with an additional source of income. While some grange farms were acquired by endowment, others were purchased as an investment, so they were not necessarily situated near the mother house and were leased out for rent when they became burdensome for the mother house to run.8
What was a grange farm?

Granges were not founded to house a religious community, but rather to house labourers and supervisors farming the estate, and they were required to be self-sufficient. Indio was land on which no buildings were referred to, and was granted to St John’s Hospital Bridgwater in 1219. The hospital had been established to help care for the needy and to provide hospitality to poor travellers. It was run by an abbot and twelve religious brothers. Indio’s farm land was rented out to supplement the funding of this religious house. The only other farm land owned by St John’s outside Somerset was in Fleet Street, London.9 It was not unusual for religious foundations elsewhere in the country to have property and grange farms in Devon. Joyce Youings has shown that twenty-seven religious foundations from thirteen other counties, some as far away as Pembrokeshire and Warwickshire, held farm lands in Devon.10 Colin Platt, Joan Greatrex and Graham Brown have also published studies which examine such scattered monastic estates and granges.11 Devon religious foundations, however, generally held lands within their own county as Nicholas Orme and John Jenkins have shown.12 Grange farms were not true monastic communities, as they were founded and directed by lay brothers. As such there was no need for a cloister or a chapel. Many early granges were poor and failed to survive, as the bulk of their money was required to support the main religious house. There were also problems managing the brothers who visited to oversee the estate. Finding labour for the grange farm later known as Indio would not have been easy as it did not come under the feudal ownership of the Lord of the Manor of Bovey Tracey.

Indio at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries

We learn more about Indio from state papers at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries. Joyce Youings listed the grants given for each dissolved religious institution. In 1544 property at Indio and Ullacombe in the parish of Bovey Tracey, late of St John’s Hospital, Bridgwater, Somerset was granted to John Southcott of Bodmin and John Tregonwell of Middleton. She provided further details about this property:
Rent of a messuage in Yondyeo leased on 15 July 1531 to John Southcote, his wife Joan and Johns’s heirs for ever, 26s 8d; rent of a cottage on Owlecombe held by Thomas Underhay, 5s, property in Dorset 8s. Certified with declarations including a note that all these are ‘quyllettes and parcell of no manors’ and, ‘I can fynde by no recorde that the rent (at Indio) was at any time more than ys aboveseyd’, by Ralph Lamb.13
So what was Indio? The word ‘messuage’ does not imply a farm or a chapel or any substantial building. This description confirms it as farmland and a grange farm – clearly not a manor, or associated with a manor. The messuage would have consisted of buildings for farm workers, their tools and stores. Joyce Youings highlighted that John Southcott and John Tregonwill’s total income from the Bovey Tracey grant, which included Indio woods and the advowson of the parsonage, was £41 10s 4d a year. The money Indio contributed to this was very small indeed, being £1 6s 8d a year. St John’s did not make much money out of Indio. Its income was nothing like the annual incomes of the Devon nunneries which were valued as £912 for Plympton, £197 for Canonsleigh, and £164 for Polsloe at the time of the dissolution.14 Interestingly John Tregonwell, joint purchaser of Indio with his relation John Southcott, acted as Thomas Cromwell’s agent in visiting St John’s Bridgwater to assess its wealth prior to the dissolution.
Indio after 1544

After purchasing Indio, John Southcott built his family seat there and became Lord of the Manor of Bovey Tracey. His son Thomas inherited Indio and the lordship in 1556. Information on subsequent owners of the estate is inconsistent, but it is recorded that Indio and the lordship were held by the heirs of Nicholas Everleigh until 1658, when they were bought by Sir John Stawell. Following Stawell’s death in 1689 Indio was owned by the Inglett family who were related to the Southcotts, but the Ingletts did not purchase the lordship.15 Joseph Steer (1776–1856) became the owner in the eighteenth century and with his brother Thomas developed a successful pottery business on the estate, until its closure in 1836.16 An 1844 sketch by local artist Elizabeth Croker shows the house in Steer’s time. Her sketch was titled ‘Indio Chapel’, thus perpetuating the legend of a religious connection, which will be considered below (Figure 3). Peter Weddell analysed this sketch as part of his archaeological investigation in 1986, and reported that it looked like a two storey domestic building with a porch chimney rather than a chapel.17

 

 

indio-chapel-no

Figure 3. Indio Chapel, Elizabeth Croker. Reproduced with the kind permission of Devon Archives and Local Studies ServicE
The property passed to Charles Aldenburgh Bentinck in the midnineteenth century, who also purchased the lordship of the manor of Bovey Tracey from William Courtenay, Earl of Devon. Bentinck demolished the sixteenth-century house in 1850, and replaced it with the current house built in a Gothic style, designed by David Mackintosh, an ecclesiastical architect from Exeter (Indio was designated as a grade II listed building in 1986). The Bentincks retained the house until it was sold in 1939. After use as a refugee centre in WWII it became Indio Horticultural Training Gardens offering one or two year courses. Since then, Indio has had various owners, and part of the estate was developed for housing and luxury holiday lodges in the late twentieth-century. 18

Evidence for early medieval settlement An archaeological excavation in 2009 undertaken by Alex Farnell for Exeter Archaeology revealed one hundred and twenty- five sherds of post-medieval pottery, and thirty-six sherds of local coarse-ware from the 1500s to the early 1800s, but none were early enough to suggest a medieval monastic settlement. Alex Farnell, and Peter Weddell before him, concluded from their archaeological findings and written sources that with the lack of both early medieval pottery and other remains, Indio had been a grange farm of St John’s, as also confirmed by local historians in Somerset. Alex Farnell considered that the reset granite columns in the grounds possibly came from John Southcott’s earlier building.19 So far no evidence has been found of any water works, such as would have been have required to service a nunnery or a priory at Indio, either topographically or archaeologically. Neither is there any recorded evidence of granting of a state licence in the Calendar of Patent Rolls, which James Bond tells us would have been a requirement. The only evidence relating to the topography of Indio is one ‘ancient’ leat and a well for the house. A further leat was dug in the eighteenth century for the pottery works.20
The bishops’ registers

The bishops’ registers are silent regarding a religious house in Bovey Tracey. There were no bishops’ visitations, and no representatives are recorded as travelling to London c.1291 to take the oath in connection with Pope Nicholas IV’s taxation on religious houses.21 In 1334 Bishop Grandison reported that Bovey Tracey and Morwenstow, both churches within the grants to St John’s Hospital, were ruinous and that the hospital was misusing the rectorial tithes of these parishes.22 No specific mention is made of Indio, and its income was not being used to help Bovey Tracey parish church. Furthermore, no reference was made to any monks or nuns in Bovey Tracey, nor to any pensions being paid following the dissolution of the monasteries. Neither was there any record of an endowment from a patron, all of which suggests that that no religious house existed at Indio.
The Legend of the nunnery

Visitors to Bovey Tracey can walk along Priory, Abbey Road, and Monks Way. These however are all twentieth-century appellations, and not based on historical evidence.23 There are no field names to suggest any religious occupation in Bovey Tracey on the Land Tax Assessment of 1770, or on the Tithe Map of 1841, except Friar’s field on Whitstone Farm, which was named after a local family who owned it.24 The only evidence cited in support of the previous existence of a religious house are two medieval archways in Abbey Road, one called Cromwell’s Arch, and the other being part of a gateway into the Baptist church precinct. The English Heritage Listed Building entry and the Historic Environment Record describe them as medieval granite arches, ‘Believed locally to be the remains of a monastery but no such institution is known to have existed in the town’.25 Furthermore, English Heritage states that, ‘Tradition has linked Indio to a medieval priory or nunnery, but this would seem not to be based on precise historical information’, concluding that there are no visible remains of any monastic buildings on the site.26 This is in contrast to the three recorded nunneries in Devon – Canonsleigh, Cornworthy and Polsloe – all of which have some parts of their buildings extant.27 Despite a lack of evidence local guide books and the town council web-site perpetuate the myth that there was a monastery or priory in the centre of Bovey Tracey, and the books also refer to a nunnery at Indio.28

The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535 which valued religious holdings at the time of the dissolution made no mention of a priory or nunnery in Bovey Tracey.29 John Leland, the first topographer of Devon, writing between 1538 and 1547 also did not refer to a religious house in Bovey Tracey.30 Thomas Westcote in 1630 referred only to the Southcott family seat at Indio.31 Tristram Risdon, writing between 1605 and 1632 was the first to suggest that, ‘Indio was once a priory now the seat of Southcott, Knight, where is built a fair house’.32

With so many possibilities for evidence in patent rolls, bishops’ registers, wills and land leases, it is suspicious that the first, and unsubstantiated reference we have to there being a religious house at Indio is as late as the 1600s. William Dugdale in his Monasticon Anglicanum, written between 1655 and 1673, referred to Risdon’s description but thought it ‘doubtful as no particulars are known of them’.33 William Jones in 1779 provided a complete list of all the religious houses in Devon before the dissolution, yet he made no mention of any in Bovey Tracey.34 Tristram Risdon’s tradition was repeated by his near contemporary William Pole (1561–1635). William Pole’s work was built on and published by his descendant in 1791, stating ‘Indehoe lieth in Bovi Tracy, sometime a priory’.35 Tristram Risdon and William Pole’s assertions were repeated by Richard Polwhele in his 1797 History of Devonshire, although he raised doubts about the evidence, stating ‘Monastic House of Indio Priory, South Bovey, seat of the Southcotts, says Risdon, there are still a few remains; though not a distinct tradition in the neighbourhood.’36 These ‘remains’ are possibly those referred to in Alex Farnell’s archaeological report. The reference to the lack of a distinct local tradition indicates that evidence of a religious house was not strong.

Nineteenth-century historians questioned the truth of earlier assertions regarding the location of a priory at Indio. Daniel and Samuel Lysons referred to Risdon’s description of Indio but stated that the existence of a priory was doubtful.37 George Oliver in his 1840 study of church antiquities in Devon noted that the parish church in Bovey Tracey had been presented to St John’s Bridgwater and that establishment also owned the land at Indio. He refuted Pole and Risdon’s claims about any priory at Indio and stated,
After diligent enquiry we believe this to be a complete error, from confusing the property with the priory or hospital itself at Bridgwater. If it had been a religious establishment, no doubt it would have been noted in the Registers of the See of Exeter.’38
Later, in his ‘Monasticon Dioceses Exoniensis’, George Oliver presented a comprehensive list of the records on all convents and monasteries in Devon and unsurprisingly did not present evidence for a priory or nunnery in Bovey Tracey.39 The Somerset historian, Thomas Holmes, writing in the 1911 Victoria County History of Somerset, supported the conclusion made by both Daniel and Samuel Lyson and George Oliver, that Tristram Risdon and Richard Polwhele had been confused about the evidence, or rather the lack it.40 We now turn to an American newspaper column of 1885 written by the Bovey Tracey born emigrant, William Ellis. His romantic articles spun an interesting picture of his native town in the style of gothic novels popular at the time. They included legends of a priory at Hind Street and a nunnery at Indio based on Risdon’s erroneous speculations, and repeated by various antiquarian authors since the 1630s. These legends obtained a wider circulation as a member of the local Hole family had Ellis’s articles reprinted in England in 1930. Unfortunately some later local authors assumed the legends to be based on fact.41
What about the nuns’ walk?

One of the legends disseminated by William Ellis was of a double-hedged walk being planted by the lord of the manor so that nuns from Indio could walk to the parish church in privacy.42 The lord apparently did this to recompense the nuns when he married one of their orphaned needle-workers, another gothic style tale. This is the first published reference to such a path. Local historians have repeated this legend. We know from the history of religious houses that nuns would not have worshipped in the parish church unless their convent was next to the church, and their section for worship was partitioned from the rest of the congregation. It is inconceivable that cloistered nuns would walk a considerable distance over marshy land to attend church several times a day as required for their religious duties. They would have needed a dispensation from the bishop to do this, as well as requiring a visiting or resident chaplain, both of which would have generated recorded evidence.43 Joint use of a church would also have given rise to disputes over rights to offerings, which saints to celebrate and so on, and no such disputes are recorded.44 The legend of nuns walking to and from the parish church is implausible.

Lance Tregonning was the first author to print a map of the ‘nuns’ walk’ in his 1983 drawing of such a path from Indio to Drake’s Lane. From there the nuns would have had to progress along the main highway to reach the church.45 Maps from 1641 are extant for Bovey Tracey and show various tracks between the fields, but not from Indio towards the parish church.46 Both S. D. Turton’s archaeological assessment of Bovey Tracey and the Heritage Gateway entry, conclude that a track may once have extended northward from Indio across the river which met up with Drake lane, at a right hand turn.47 A short portion of track, hedged either side, still exists and was part of Buck’s Lane as shown next to field 2018 on the Tithe map but this did not extend to the river (Figure 4).48 Some local residents refer to this hedge as proof of the nuns’ walk.

So why did Lance Tregonning draw a ‘nuns’ walk’? Possibly he based his assumption on a sketch plan in the Hole papers c.1770 showing a track south from the church called ‘Church Path from Indio House to the Bovey Tracey Church’. This was drawn to support Steer’s litigation in connection with disputed access to Tracey’s Pool.49 Leases for this land from 1701 make no mention of such a path and only refer to owners having full access. This suggests that it was an insignificant land access path which would not have been double hedged as it would have split the field and prevented animal and worker access to the various sections.50 Also the names of fields between Indio and the parish church – Deer Park, Allers, Flay Pit, Oaks, and Second Moorhayes – do not suggest a significant path or any religious usage.
Conclusion

Indio is an example of a medieval grange farm held by a distant religious house. The small income it provided for St John’s Hospital indicates that in its early history it was not a financial success. No evidence has yet been found to support the legend of an early monastic house at Indio. Local historians had not checked their sources and so a long running myth was perpetuated, which was widely appropriated to aggrandise the history of Bovey Tracey. Medieval ownership of the land by St John’s Hospital Bridgwater could have led to the erroneous tradition that it was also a priory or nunnery. We know that John Southcott, who built the first known house at Indio, had realised a fortune from being the steward of Thomas Cromwell and that he obtained several monastic holdings in Devonshire, so perhaps an assumption was made that one of his holdings in Bovey Tracey was similarly religious.51 After the dissolution of the monasteries Indio became the seat of a government administrator. Later, in the eighteenth century it became part of the industrial revolution when its entrepreneurial owner established a pottery business on the site. Part of the Indio estate was later developed for housing and holiday lodges, and the main house has now returned to its earlier, peaceful life as a family residence. The legend of Indio’s early history as a nunnery, runs on despite the overwhelming evidence against it.

NOTES

1. Armitage Hargreaves, Bovey Tracey History and Legend (Mid-Devon Newspaper Co. Ltd, 1968), 26-27; Lance Tregonning, Bovey Tracey An Ancient Town (Bovey Tracey: Cottage Publishing, 1993), 17, 88-9; Veronica Kennedy, The Bovey Book (Bovey Tracey: Cottage Publishing, 2004), 106; Elizabeth Westwood, Bovey Tracey Rediscovered (Bovey Tracey: Combe Meadow Publishing, 2012), 36, 69. The above are all local guide books describing Indio as a nunnery.

2. DHC, Bovey Tracey: 2160A/PZ3. Newspaper article cuttings ‘Sketches of Bovey Tracey’ by William Ellis published in the weekly ‘Saturday American’ 1885 (days and months unknown); Hargreaves, Bovey Tracey History and Legend, and Kennedy, The Bovey Book, all interpret Indio as having a religious meaning.

3. J. E. B. Gover, A. Mawer, and F. M. Stenton, The Place-Names of Devon Part One and Part Two, English Place Name Society Volume 8 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1931), 467; the following are the supporting evidence cited by Gover- Benjamin Donne Map of the County of Devon 1765, no 44 in The Printed Maps of Devon (Kit Batten and Francis Bennett, Tiverton: Devon Books, 1996), <http://www.devon.gov.uk/sx87don-3.jpg>, accessed 12  December 2014; C. and J. Greenwood, Map of Devon 1827, no. 96, in The Printed  Maps of Devon; James Gairdner and R. H. Brodie, (eds), Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, vol. 19, part 2, (London: HMSO, 1905) grants in October 1544 p. 527 para. 36 refers to Yondeyeo; Calendar of Patent Rolls Edward VI, vol. I 1547–1548 (London: HMSO 1970), 158. 20 June 1547, refers to Judeyeo.

4. Gover, Mawer and Stenton, The Place-Names of Devon, xxxiii; xxxvii.

5. Margaret Gelling, Signposts To The Past, 2nd edn (Chichester: Phillimore, 1998); A. D. Mills, A Dictionary of English Place Names (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

6. Samantha Letters, Gazeteer of Markets and Fairs in England and Wales to 1516 (List and Index Society PRO (Special Issue 32, 2003) < http://www.history.ac.uk/ cmh/gaz/gaazweb2html [devon] (2010). 1903–1907>, accessed 14 December 2014, lists markets and fairs in Devon; Calendar of Charter Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office, vol. II, 1257-1300, (H. C. Maxwell Lyte, London: HMSO, 1906), 26. 18 July 1260 grant of annual fair; Maryanne Kowaleski, Local Markets and Regional Trade in Exeter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), discusses development of boroughs in Devon; Frances Billinge, ‘Tracing the Boundaries of the Borough of Bovey Tracey from Saxon Times to the Present’, TDH, 18 (2012), 3-16, the article refers to the markets and fairs on pages 3 and 4.

7. Grant of 20 June 1227 confirmed in CCR Henry III 1226–1257: 1229 Grant of Advowson of Bovey Tracey parish church with appurtenances by Henry de Tracy to William Brewer which William Brewer gave to the brothers of the hospital in Bridgwater. The 1227 grant confirmed the previous de Tracy grant which William Brewer had given to the church of Wells 14 May 1219, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300, vii, (130), Bath and Wells; Registers of the Bishops of Exeter from 1257–1455 edited in 9 volumes by F. G. Hingeston-Randolph, published London and Exeter 1892–1915; G. R. Dunstan, ed., The Register of Edmund Lacy, Bishop of Exeter: Registrum Commune, 5 vols, (Exeter: DCRS New Series, 1963-72); W. H. B. Bird, ed., Calendar of the Manuscripts of The Dean and Chapter of Wells, vols 1 and 2 (London: Historical Manuscripts Commission, 1907); T.S. Holmes, The Register of Shrewsbury, Bishop of Bath and Wells 1329–1363 (Somerset Record Society, 1896); Bill Hope, ed., Register of John Morton Archbishop of Canterbury 1486–1500 (Canterbury and York Society, 1991), 3 vols, ii, 77-83.

8. Colin Platt, The Monastic Grange in Medieval England (London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd, 1969), 14, 47, 87; and James Bond, Monastic Landscapes (Stroud: Tempus, 2004), 34, 214, both describe the development of monastic granges, some of which were at a distance.

9. W. A. J. Archbold, The Somerset Religious Houses (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1892); T. Bruce Dilkes and H. Eardley Field, The Parish of St John the Baptist Bridgwater With Some Notes on the Ancient Hospital at Bridgwater (Whitby: Light and Lane, 1946); T.  B. Dilkes, 1948, The Hospital of St John the Baptist <http://www.friarn.co.uk/stjohn>, Accessed 15 December 2014; P. Cattermole, 2014, pers. comm.; D. Knowles and R. N. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses in England and Wales, 2nd edn (London: Longman, 1971), 19; Clare Gathercole, An Archaeological Assessment of Bridgwater. English Heritage Extensive Urban Survey 2001 (St John’s Bridgwater Somerset Heritage Gateway).

10. Joyce Youings, Devon Monastic Lands: Calendar of Particulars for Grants 1536–1558 (Exeter: DCRS New Series, 1955).

11. Colin Platt, The Monastic Grange, 14, 47, 87; Joan Greatrex, ‘The Administration of Winchester Cathedral Priory in the Time of Cardinal Beaufort’ (PhD thesis, University of Ottowa, 1972), 49-52, 68-81; Graham Brown, ‘Langdon Wick: a grange estate of Stanley Abbey’, in Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 2005, 35-48, at 40, 41, 43.

12. Nicholas Orme, The Church in Devon 400–1560 (Exeter: Impress Books, University of Exeter Campus, 2013), 6, 42; J. C. Jenkins, Torre Abbey, (Unpublished D.Phil. Thesis University of Oxford, 2010), 45, 53, 55-6, 63.

13. Youings, Devon Monastic Lands, i, para m54, 49.

14. Archbold, The Somerset Religious Houses, 205-6, lists the St. John’s rents in Bovey Tracey with references to Dissolution state papers: TNA SC 6/HEN VIII/3137; W. Campbell, ed., Materials for A History of the Reign of Henry VII, (Rolls Series, 1873–7), ii; Nicholas Orme, ‘From 1050 to 1307’, in Nicholas Orme, ed. Unity and Variety: A History of the Church in Devon and Cornwall (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1991), 39-41, lists the incomes of Devon religious houses.

15. Frances Billinge, ‘Lords of the Manor of the Historic Borough of Bovey Tracey’, DAT, 2016, forthcoming.

16. Brian Adams and Anthony Thomas, A Potwork in Devonshire. (Devon: Sayce Publishing, 1996), 15.

17. P. J. Weddell, Indio Bovey Tracey. Devon Religious Houses Survey, (Devon County Council, 1986); DHC, 2160A 7 PZ4: Pen and Ink Sketches of Bovey Tracey by Elizabeth Croker, Indio Chapel, 1844.

18. Kennedy, The Bovey Book, 106-8; TNA, Census 1841–1911; The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette 27 August 1948, 5, advertisement.

19. A. J. Farnell, Archaeological recording at Indio Ponds, Bovey Tracey, Teignbridge, Devon. (Exeter Archaeology Report No. 09.55, 2009).

20. James Bond, Water Management in the Urban Monastery, in Roberta Gilchrist and Harold Mytum, (eds), Advances in Monastic Archaeology. British Archaeological Report British Series 227 (Oxford: Tempus Repartum and Archaeological and Historical Associates Ltd, 1993), 43-78; DHC, D1508M/E/ MPA/Bovey Tracey Maps A1: Courtenay of Powderham Map of Heathfield and Pottery Leats, Phipps, 1837.

21. Rose Graham, English Ecclesiastical Studies (London: The Macmillan Company, 1929), 271-310; F. G. Hingeston-Randolph, ed., Bishop’s Registers as described in note 7; Holmes, ‘The Hospital of St John’s Bridgwater’; Eileen Power, Medieval English Nunneries 1275–1535 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922), 344-5; Papal Bull ‘Periculoso’ Boniface VIII 1298; Paul E. Lee, Nunneries Learning and Spirituality in Late Medieval English Society (York: York Medieval Press, 2001), 90.

22. Hingeston-Randolph, 1894–9, The Register of John de Grandisson; Rev. H. Fulford-Williams, DCNQ, 1962–4, section 29, 253-256.

23. The Western Times, 31 August 1915, 2; Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 5 November 1928, 2; Roy Wills, ‘Highways’, article in Kennedy, The Bovey Book, 78.

24. DHC: Bovey Tracey Parish Registers Baptism, Marriage, Burial, 1542–1837; DHC 2160A99/PW3: DHC Bovey Tracey Church Rate, 1596; DHC 2160A/ PW1: Bovey Tracey Churchwardens Accounts, 1704–1725; DHC, Bovey Tracey Land Tax Assessment 1770–1831; DHC, 3861M: Borough Rentals Bovey Tracey 1700, 1701, 1751, 1753; DHC, 3861M-1/PB, Tithe Map Bovey Tracey, 1841.

25. English Heritage Listed Buildings, Cromwell’s Arch ID 84477; Heritage Gateway List Entry Number 1097426; English Heritage Arch at Entrance to Graveyard of Baptist Chapel ID List Entry 109742.

26. English Heritage Listed Buildings, Indio House ID 84459; Heritage Gateway Indio House List Entry Number 21334509.

27. Heritage Gateway Canonsleigh Priory List Entry Numbers 1106457, 1106458,
1003830; Plympton Priory List Entry Number 1017594; Polsloe Priory List Entry Number 1017595.

28. Discover Bovey Tracey <www.boveytracey.gov.uk>, accessed 18 June 2016; Hargreaves, Bovey Tracey History and Legend; Tregonning, Bovey Tracey An Ancient Town; Kennedy, The Bovey Book; Westwood, Bovey Tracey Rediscovered.

29. George Oliver, Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Devon (London: Featherstone, 1840).

30. Thomas Hearne, ed., The Itinerary of John Leland Antiquary 1538–1547, 2nd edn (Thomas Hearne: Oxford, 1744–5), 9 vols, i, 102-8.

31. George Oliver and Pitman Jones, (eds), Thomas Westcote View of Devonshire in MDCXXX with a Pedigree of Most of its Gentry (Exeter: William Roberts, 1845), 510, 523, 533, 546, 577, 581.

32. Tristram Risdon, The Chorographical Description or Survey of the County of Devon (Plymouth: Rees and Curtis, 1811), 128.

33. William Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum (London, 1693), J. Caley, H. Ellis, and B. Bandinel, (eds) (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1817– 30), 8 vols, vi, part 3.

34. William Jones, A Complete History of all the Religious Houses in the Counties of Devon and Cornwall before the Dissolution, Containing Abbies and Priories (London: Smerdon and Underhill, 1779), DHC, microfiche, S 27/U.

35. William Pole, Collections Towards a Description of the County of Devon, 1561–1635, by John de la Pole 1791 (London: J. Nichols), 266.

36. Richard Polwhele, The History of Devonshire, written 1793–1806 (Derby: Kohler and Coombes, 1977 edn.), 3 vols, iii, 295.

37. Daniel and Samuel Lysons, Magna Britannia vol. 6, Devonshire (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1822), <http:www/british-history.ac.uk>, accessed 11 October 2015.

38. Oliver, Ecclesiastical Antiquities, 70-1.

39. George Oliver, Monasticon Dioecesis Exoniensis (Exeter: P.A. Hannaford; London:  Longman, Brown, Green and Longman, 1846).

40. Thomas S. Holmes, ‘The Hospital of St John’s Bridgwater’, in The Victoria History of  Somerset, 11 vols, ii, 154-156, Franciscans at Bridgwater, ii, 151-152 <http://www.british-history> accessed 20 November 2014, refers to the Bovey Tracey link with Somerset.

41. Ellis, ‘The Saturday American’; M. A. Hole, Bovey Tracey and District (Oxford: Blackwell, 1930).

42. Ellis, ‘The Saturday American’.

43. Roberta Gilchrist, Contemplation and Action. The Other Monasticism (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1995), 120-1; Jane Burton and Karen Stöber, (eds), Monasteries and Society in the British Isles in the Late Middle Ages (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2008), 210; Greatrex, ‘The Administration of Winchester Cathedral Priory’, 56; Orme, Unity and Variety, 40; Platt, The Monastic Grange, 27; Silvia Evangelista, Nuns: A History of Convent Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 5; Ashley Elizabeth Tallyn, ‘The Quality of Life in Medieval Monasteries and Nunneries’ (Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Durham, 2014), 96, 100; Nicholas Orme, The Church in Devon 400–1560 (Exeter: Impress Books, 2013), 42, 44, confirms that nuns would have required a resident or visiting chaplain.

44. Katherine L. French, ‘Competing for Space: Medieval Religious Conflict in the Monastery and Parochial Church at Dunster’, Journal of Medieval and English Modern Studies 27,  1997, 215-44, 27.

45. Tregonning, Bovey Tracey, 1993.

46. Maps of Bovey Tracey: DHC, 2890Z/Z1: 1641 Gulielmus Map, Manor of Bovey Tracey; DHC, 1803-4: OS Surveyor’s Draft No. 37; Map of Bovey Tracey 1817, private collection; DHC, Tithe Map Bovey Tracey, 1841.

47. S. D. Turton, Archaeological Assessment of Bovey Tracey Sewer Requisition Phase I (Exeter Museum Archaeological Field Unit, 1993); Heritage Gateway, Trackway ID MDV53956.

48. DHC, Tithe Map Bovey Tracey, 1841.

49. DHC, 312M/EH/217: Plan of Tracey’s Pond and Bovey Tracey drawn for use in the case of disputed right of entry Steer vs. Hole and Flood c.1770.

50. DHC, Land Tax Assessment Bovey Tracey, see note 23; DHC, 312M/TH 164194 deeds and land leases: Tracey’s Pond and Moorhayes 1701–1769, describe entry and access rights in connection with the field in which Tracey’s Pond was sited.

51. Holmes, ‘The Hospital of St John’s Bridgwater’.
Frances Billinge obtained her doctorate from the University of Nottingham. She worked as an educational psychologist and then as an education officer. Now retired and living in Bovey Tracey, she spends her time researching the local area.