Martinhoe is located within North Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Sherwill Hundred. It falls within Shirwell Deanery for ecclesiastical purposes. The Deaneries are used to arrange the typescript Church Notes of B.F.Cresswell which are held in the Westcountry Studies Library. The population was 165 in 1801 174 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 46 adult males signed the Protestation returns.
A parish history file is held in Lynton 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.
Maps: The image below is of the Martinhoe area on Donn's one inch to the mile survey of 1765.
On the County Series Ordnance Survey mapping the area is to be found on 1:2,500 sheet 2/15 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 2SE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SS667487. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SS64NE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Outdoor Leisure 09, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 180. Geological sheet 277 also covers the area.
Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:
MARTINHOE parish contains some superb scenery, with tremendous hog-backed cliffs that are a feature of this coast. The church (St. Martin) has a charming exterior but was in fact murdered at the "restoration" of 1866- 7, when, among other crimes, the old musicians' gallery was done away with. The N. aisle was added in 1867.
On the Beacon is a circular earth- work of the same size and type as that at Old Barrow in Countisbury (q.v.), which is known to have been a Roman signal station: a more exact date is not known. The Martinhoe site has not been excavated (but see note below) but is almost certainly another signal station, probably one of several set up to give warning of the approach of hostile craft to the Roman towns and villas of Somerset. (Four. Roman Studies 22 (1932), 71,2.) The name of the Beacon suggests that it was used in later times, probably in the 16th century, as a signal station.
Killington was a Domesday manor. Croscombe Barton is conceivably a Celtic homestead in origin: it means Cradoc's combe, and Cradoc is a British personal name.
Note: The Martinhoe site was subsequently excavated in 1960. For details of the excavation, together with a list of the finds, see Devon Archaeogical Society Proceedings, vol 24.