Newton St Petrock

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Newton St Petrock is a civil and ecclesiastical parish in North Devon in SW England occupying approximately 1500 acres.

The parish’s famous landmark is an ancient oak. It’s profile is, appropriately, that of an acorn whose western border follows the River Torridge. It is contiguous with the parishes of Abbots Bickington, Bulkworthy, Shebbear and Milton Damerel. King Athelstan, in the 10th C., granted the lands of "Niwantun" to the priests of St Petroc's minster at Bodmin. The boundaries of St Petroc’s Niwantun remain exactly the same as modern Newton St Petrock with the exception of some expansion to the ecclesiastical and civil parish on its north side to include part of what was called Cleave in the Middle Ages and what was once part of the parish of Frithelstock in the 19th C. The population of this rural parish has remained remarkably stable at around 200 souls over recent centuries. In the late 17th C Newton St Petrock was the home of England’s first female physician, Prudence Abbott Potter. A 19th C . rector, John Lemprière, wrote a Classical Dictionary used for generations in schools throughout the English-speaking world. Like most North Devon parishes many of its sons and daughters emigrated to Canada and elsewhere in the second half of the 19th century.