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MARKET TOWNS OF DEVON (from SDUK Penny Cyclopedia)

Culmstock in 1836

Culmstock or Columbstock is on the border of Somersetshire, in the hundred of Hemyock, on the upper part of the river Culm, nineteen or twenty miles north-east of Exeter. The parish comprises 4,530 acres or seven square miles, and includes several villages and hamlets besides the town : it had, in 1831, 312 inhabited houses and 1,519 inhabitants ; of the adult males nearly one half were engaged in agriculture, and nearly one-seventh in manufactures.

There is a market-house, ‘built,’ say Messrs. Lysons (Magna Britannia, vol. vi., p. 151, published 1822), ‘not many years ago by the dean and chapter of Exeter.’ The market, now much declined, is held on Friday for butchers’ meat. There are two fairs in the year, at. one of which cloth is sometimes sold ; but the clothing trade, which once flourished in this place, has much declined.

The church, dedicated to All Saints, is in the centre of the town ; it contains a fine stone screen, with a rich doorway, canopied with foliage. There are meeting-houses for Quakers and Wesleyan Methodists ; and one for Calvinistic Baptists at the village of Prescot, in the parish.

The living is a vicarage, in the gift of the dean and chapter of Exeter, in whose peculiar jurisdiction it is: its annual value is £250, with a glebe-house. There were in the parish, in 1833, two day-schools (one of them partly supported by contribution), with 144 children ; and three Sunday-schools, with nearly 300 children.