Lustleigh is a small village and civil parish in the Wray Valley, inside the Dartmoor National Park in Devon, England. It is between the towns of Bovey Tracey and Moretonhampstead. The village has often been named in various publications as being amongst the best or prettiest villages in the country, particularly due to the traditional thatched buildings in the village centre, and local activities such as the Lustleigh Show. That has also led to it being noted as the most expensive rural location in which to buy a house.
The village is clustered around the parish church of St John the Baptist. Surrounding this are old buildings, many of which have thatched roofs. There is a village shop with Post Office, auto mechanic, tea room and a pub.
Toponymy Legh or leigh is Old English for a clearing in a wood. The oldest recorded use of the name is as Leuesterlegh in 1242, from the Book of Fees, and it is thought that the first part of the name represents the name of a person. This person has been suggested to be either Luvesta ('dearest one' in Middle English) which is a surname known from Ermington in 1333, or Lēofgiest, an old English name, making it "Luvesta's clearing" or "Lēofgiest's clearing".
The spelling of the name has continued to drift, and other spellings have included Leuesteleḡ (in 1249), Leuistelegh (1276), Luuestelegh (1276), Lustelegh (1276), Luuastelegge (1282), Lusteleye (1285), Lisleigh (1672), and Luſtley (1761).
Settlement geography
The settlement geography of the modern village is that there is a distinct nucleated village centre, sometimes referred to as the "town", with a large cluster of buildings and facilities around the central churchyard. However, for historical reasons, the centre of the village is polyfocal, with separate distinct hamlets, now partially merged into the centre.
Until 1929, the parish boundary with the Bovey Tracey civil parish was set at the Wray Brook, which runs in the valley bottom, which meant that the manor of Wreyland was part of Bovey parish, despite its proximity to the centre of Lustleigh. The same applies to the Brookfield houses which form a distinct area on the approach to the village, and which were built in the last 19th century for the miners of Kelly Mine.
Pethybridge was once a relatively isolated farmstead, prior to its purchase by the council in 1945, and the building of council housing, which was officially opened in 1949.
The hamlets of Pethybridge, Wreyland, and Brookfield are nearly contiguous with the centre of the village, but the further hamlets of Hammerslake and Sanduck are further from the village centre. The remainder of the parish is a dispersed settlement, with houses and farms spread out in their own grounds.
History of the village Prehistory The area where Lustleigh now stands has been inhabited since before records began as shown by the remains of stone hut circles, evidence of Stone Age activity, and the presence of an ancient burial monument "Datuidoc's Stone", which dates from between 450 and 600 AD, and is housed within the village church, having previously been the door sill.
Early history
There is some disagreement amongst scholars about the early identity of the village, and whether it appears in historical record. Some indicate that the village was recorded as Suðeswyrðe in the 899 will of King Alfred the Great, being left to his youngest son Æthelweard. This was later recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Sutreworde,A. Jones in the Book of Lustleigh, 2001 Anglo-Saxon for 'south of the wood'.
Other scholars, including noted antiquarian and Lustleigh resident Cecil Torr, dispute that interpretation, and believe that Suðeswyrðe and Sutreworde refer to other settlements. Torr asserts that the settlement mentioned has features much larger than Lustleigh has ever been, and that the main evidence supporting the assertion is incomplete matching of records from the Marshwood estates.
Later scholarship by historian Ian Mortimer has suggested that Sutreworde was in Lustleigh parish, not at the current location of the village, but rather near the Iron Age hill fort at Hunter's Tor in Lustleigh Cleave on the edge of the parish. At the time of the Domesday Survey, there were around 155 people living in Sutreworde.
If that is the case, then the current village was still part of the manor, within the Teignbridge Hundred, and was controlled by Ansgar the Staller as part of a farm holding, plus a large area of forest. Unusually for the Domesday Book, beekeeping was mentioned as a key activity of the parish.
Middle ages During the reign of Henry I, the parish was held by Geoffrey de Mandeville who was warden of Exeter Castle, and who was also given the Wonford Hundred in Exeter. de Mandelville's descendant William Tilly was attainted by King John and forfeited the property, before Robert de Mandeville was able to recover the lands to the family.
In 1272, during the reign of Edward I, Lustleigh passed to William de Widworthy of Widworthy, a family of knights from the Colyton Hundred. It remained in this family until 1413, when it was purchased by Sir John Wadham, a Justice of the Common Pleas, in whose family it remained for eight generations until the death of heir Nicholas Wadham who had no children and endowed the money from the sale of two-thirds of the Lustleigh estate to the construction of Wadham College, Oxford.Chap XX: Lustleigh - Lords of the manor; WADHAM of Edge, including Nicholas WADHAM of Lustleigh (founder of Wadham College, Oxford), Rev. William Davy
The oldest known house in the village is the old manor house on Mapstone Hill, now divided into three properties, with the oldest part dated to the 14th century. It is thought to have been built by William Prouz, heir to Gidleigh Castle and used to replace former manorial court at Barnecourt. Prouz is believed to have added the south chapel to the Church of St John the Baptist, near to the manor house in Lustleigh and there is an effigy of him within the church where he is also buried.
The remainder of the estate manor, and particularly the houses of Uphill and Great Hall on Mapstone Hill, was in the hands of heirs of the Wadhams, the Earls of Ilchester, until the beginning of the 19th century, when it was broken up and sold off.
Boundary expansions Over time, the village expanded from its original boundaries (signified by the Bishop's stone at Caseley as the entrance, and the Wray or Wrey brook in the valley). The major expansion was the annexation of Wreyland and Brookfield to the parish, which was completed by an Order in Council in 1929.
This order expanded the boundary to Wilford Bridge on the River Bovey and took the extent out to Slade Cross on the A382 road, where previously beating the bounds from neighbouring Bovey Tracey had come right to Lustleigh railway station, which was adjacent to the Wray Brook on the boundary.
Awards and features The village has often been named amongst the 'best' villages in the country, by a range of publications. This includes: "one of the prettiest villages in the UK" - MyLondon "one of England's greatest villages" - Daily Telegraph "Dartmoor's prettiest village" - Britain Express "one of Britain's prettiest villages" - Discover Britain
Populus
The parish has a broadly declining population, down from a high of 679 in 1951, split between 153 households (an average of over 4 people per household), to a 2011 population of 553 across 286 households (an average of less than two people per household), and 579 people in 2021 in 273 households. In the 2021 census, less than 25% of households had more than 2 occupants, and the sexes were nearly evenly split with 297 females and 282 males.
The median age for residents in the wider area (Moretonhampstead, Lustleigh & East Dartmoor - which also included North Bovey and Widecombe) was 55 years old in the 2021 census, and nearly one third of all residents were over 65 (compared to the national average of 11%), whilst only 13.3% were aged 15 years or under (compared to 17.4% nationally).
Over 60% of residents of the parish own their own home outright, without a mortgage, loan, or shared ownership, and around a further 20% have a mortgage, loan, or shared ownership.
In excess of 97.9% of residents of the village identify as white, and over 90% identify as only British (or another UK identity, such as English), with over 92% of residents born in the UK. A little under half of the population has no religion, with around 40% being Christian.
Around half the population are "economically inactive", meaning they are not in work or looking for work, or have retired, and over 80% of those have not worked in the last 12 months. Over half of residents have Level 4 qualifications or above (above A-levels).
Village features The village is centred around the Church of St John the Baptist, whose graveyard occupies a roughly oval plot. Most of the village's amenities are clustered around this area, including a village shop and outreach post office (The Dairy), an art gallery (Stable House Gallery), a tea rooms (Primrose Tea Rooms), pub & restaurant (The Cleave), and auto mechanic (Orchard Garage).
In 1995, villagers created a subscription company to purchase the shop, which was at risk of closure, raising £86,000 to purchase the freehold, and ensuring that the village continued to have a retail outlet.
The village previously had several other shops, including a stand-alone post office and Royal Mail sorting office which closed in 2009, with post office counter services reopening in the Dairy, as well as a tuck shop in what is now a private house.
Many of the buildings (including the pub, tea rooms, and art gallery) are traditionally thatched, and this is a common feature through the village, especially in the Wreyland (pronounced 'Relland', possibly after an old local family) area. Wreyland was not traditionally part of Lustleigh, sitting on the other side of the Wray Brook, but was incorporated into the village in 1929.
There is a small village green outside the church and tea rooms, featuring a granite cross, erected as a memorial to the Reverend Henry Tudor, rector of the parish, who died in the early 20th century.
A short distance from the centre is the village hall, rebuilt on the site of the former Conservative Club, and featuring a large main hall, a meeting room, and a kitchen, as well as service areas and a rifle range.
Adjacent to the village hall and auto mechanic is the orchard (also known as the Town Orchard), which is around of public park land, gifted to the parish in 1965 by a local. The orchard hosts the annual Lustleigh May Day, and there is a large granite rock with carved throne used for crowning of the May Queen.
Further outside the village is 'The Bishop's Stone', which is a carved boundary stone on the bottom of Caseley Hill and the top of the station approach road, carved to commemorate the visit of a Bishop of Exeter, although it is not known which bishop.
On the main A382 road outside the village centre, on the Kelly Farm estate is Kelly Mine, which is a preserved mine, occasionally opened to the public for tours.
The village used to have a county primary school, opened in 1876, but this closed in 1963.
Places of worship
Lustleigh currently has the Church of St John the Baptist as the Church of England parish church, located centrally in the village, as well as a Baptist Church just outside the village centre on Rudge Hill, and was built in around 1853Cutts & Green, 2001, in Book of Lustleigh by people of the village, most notably including the large Amery family, who have one of the longest associations with the village.
The parish church contains the ancient Datuidoc's stone, which is a carved stone dating from around 450-600AD.