History

 

The history of Uplyme Village Hall 

The current village hall was opened on 1st October 1994 by Jean and Laurence Masters who donated the land on which it is built.  The foundation stone pictured was laid on 6th June 1993 by Adrian Pearson who was chairman of the fundraising committee. The foundation stone is from the old hall which stood nearby. This hall was built as a result of exceptional generosity with money and time by the people of Uplyme and its environs, together with major grants from the Community Council of Devon, East Devon District Council, the Foundation for Sport and the Arts, and the Rural Development Commission.  It is dedicated to future generations in the belief that there is good in all people.

Village History

Historically, Uplyme formed part of Axminster Hundred. It fell within Honiton Vol 1 Deanery for ecclesiastical purposes. The Deaneries were used to arrange the typescript Church Notes of B.F. Cresswell, which are held in the Westcountry Studies Library.

The population was 549 in 1801, then 798 in 1901. Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. The lay subsidy of 1524 valued the community at £10/13s/06d.

A parish history file is held in Axminster Library. You can look for other material on the community by using the place search on the main local studies database. Further historical information is also available on the Genuki website.

Uplyme was given to Glastonbury Abbey by King Cynewulf in 774 and held by the Abbey until the Dissolution. It was then bought from the Crown by John Drake whose descendants sold it in 1775. The manor had thus changed hands only once in a thousand years.

Shapwick (“sheep farm”) is first mentioned in 1167. It became a grange of Newenham Abbey, near Axminster, and in 1670 was in the hands of Solomon Andrew, a rich merchant of Lyme Regis, whose granddaughter and heiress Sarah Andrew attracted Henry Fielding. Her guardian disapproved of his suit and removed her elsewhere. She is supposed to be the model for the character Sophia Western in Henry Fielding’s 1749 comic novel ‘The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling’. (Davidson, Newhaven Abbey, 166; Huchins, History of Dorset (3rd. ed., 1863), 78)

The church (St. Peter and St. Paul) was so badly over-restored in 1876 that it was said to have lost all historic interest.

Geographical details

On the County Series Ordnance Survey mapping, the area is to be found on 1:2,500 sheet 84/3 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 84NE,SE.

The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SY325933. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping, the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SY39SW, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 029, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 193. Geological sheet 326 also covers the area.