Bridford

Village in Devon, England

Human settlement in England

Devon

Region

South West

CountryEnglandSovereign stateUnited KingdomPost townExeterPostcode districtEX6Dialling code01647Police Devon and Cornwall Fire Devon and Somerset Ambulance South Western UK Parliament

Central Devon

List of places: UK; England; Devon

50°39′58″N 3°40′30″W / 50.666°N 3.675°W / 50.666; -3.675

Bridford is a village and civil parish in south west England, located in the Teign Valley, Devon on the edge of Dartmoor. The parish is surrounded (clockwise from the north) by the parishes of Dunsford, Doddiscombsleigh, Christow, and Moretonhampstead.^[2] At the 2011 census the population of the parish was 503,^[1] compared with 404 in 1901.^[3]

History

The place-name 'Bridford' is first attested in a charter of circa 1080, where surprisingly it appears as Bridaford. It is recorded as Brideforda in the Domesday Book of 1086. The name means 'brides' ford', and has the same derivation as Britford in Wiltshire.^[4]

Today

Bridford has a village pub called the Bridford Inn, which incorporates the village shop. The Post Office visits every Friday in the village hall, and the doctor's surgery is open five days a week in neighbouring Christow. Moorgate vets have a small surgery just outside the village, and there is a MOT and general servicing garage and garden centre within a mile of Bridford. There is a children's play park, a village garden and a village hall. The village also has a two-acre Woodland Trust nature reserve and Rowdon Woods. It is well served by buses to both Exeter and Newton Abbot.

Bridford's church is dedicated to St Thomas Becket. There is also a tiny Methodist chapel in the centre of the village.

The village has clubs such as scouts, women's institute, darts and skittles teams. Teign Valley Golf Club is four miles away and there is a football pitch and tennis courts in Christow two miles distant.

Children from Bridford go to neighbouring primary schools in the neighbouring villages of Christow, Dunsford or Doddiscombsleigh. They then attend Teign school, an Academy.

Bridford has its annual village summer fête in July. It is twinned with Saint-Vaast-sur-Seulles, a village in the Normandy region of France.

References

^ ^a ^b "Bridford Parish". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 14 January 2017.
^ "Map of Devon Parishes" (PDF). Devon County Council. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 November 2013. Retrieved 7 July 2016.
^ Harris, Helen (2004). A Handbook of Devon Parishes. Tiverton: Halsgrove. pp. 29–30. ISBN 1-84114-314-6.
^ Eilert Ekwall, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names, p.64.