North Molton

North Molton is a large parish, which stretches almost to the borders of Exmoor. Its Parish Church of All Saints dates from the late 14th Century and has a medieval pulpit. There are several hostelries in the village providing good food as well as a trout farm where locally caught and smoked fish can be purchased.

A quiet village between Exmoor and the main road into North Devon. North Molton used to prosper from wool and mining. The fine church with it's imposing tower is worth a visit and there is a trout farm just outside the village.

The church was entirely rebuilt in the late fifteenth century, probably funded by the wool and cloth trade. North Molton was an important manor in the Middle Ages and included Twitchen. It was described as a borough in 1238 and obtained a grant of a market and a fair in 1270 but its status was refuted in 1316. By the early 16th century it had a flourishing cloth trade and cloth merchants like the Parkers amassed great wealth.
 
The core of North Molton is the Square, a large open space where the fairs would have been held and to one side of which stands the church, and the long straggling East Street. Here are several fine houses originally of the early 18th century including Frayne house, Zeals, Castle Hill, and Jarman’s. Clearly the place was prosperous at that period as the churchyard contains some fine 18th-century chest tombs including those to the Moorner, Frayne, and Flemen families. There are a few earlier houses of quality such as the Bampfylde’s grand 1553 Court House or 17th-century Hillside View. In the 1730s parishioners paid for nearly 8,000 sheep to graze in the Exmoor forest, far more than any other community and a fifth of all the sheep in the forest.

Contributed by: Peter Smythe