•  Axmouth, Devon

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In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Axmouth like this:

AXMOUTH, a village and a parish in Axminster district, Devon. The village stands at the mouth of the river Axe, under Hawksdown hill, 6 miles SSW of Axminster. It has a post office under Axminster; and is a coastguard station, and a station of the survey commenced in 1837 to detect the differences of level between the English and the British channels. ...

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A harbour here gave refuge, in ancient times, to vessels under stress of weather; was much improved in the early part of the 17th century; and now has piers for the moorage and discharge of vessels of 150 tons burden. A range of cliffs extending hence east-north-eastward to Lyme Regis has been remarkably subject to landslips; and commands magnificent views of nearly the whole coast of Devon and Dorset. A great landslip occurred on the 25th of December 1839, destroying two cottages and 45 acres of fine arable land, and forming a chasm 300 feet or more broad, 150 feet deep, and ¾ of a mile long; and another, of much smaller extent, occurred on the 3rd of February 1840. The parish comprises 4,533 acres of land, and 190 of water. Real property, £5,631. Pop., 662. Houses, 126. The manor was given by Rivers, Earl of Devon, to the abbey of St. Mary, Mountbarrow, in Normandy; passed, at the suppression of alien monasteries, to the abbey of Sion; went, at the final dissolution of monasteries, to Catherine, queen of Henry VIII.; was granted, in 1552, to Walter Erle, Esq.; passed from him to Sir W. Yonge; was purchased, in 1691, by R. Hallett, Esq.; and belongs now to that gentleman's descendant, W. T. Hallett, Esq., whose residence is a fine mansion, called Stedcombe House. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Exeter. Value, £230.* Patron, W. T. Hallett, Esq. The church consists of nave, chancel, and south porch; is early English and perpendicular, but has an Anglo-Norman doorway and some wildly grotesque gurgoils; and contains monuments of the Erles and the Halletts.

Axmouth through time

Axmouth is now part of East Devon district. Click here for graphs and data of how East Devon has changed over two centuries. For statistics about Axmouth itself, go to Units and Statistics.

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