Newbuildings, Devon
Hamlet in England
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Newbuildings (less frequently New Buildings) is a hamlet in the civil parish of Sandford, in the Mid Devon district of Devon, England. It is located approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) northwest of Crediton.
| Newbuildings | |
|---|---|
| Hamlet | |
Thatched cottages in Newbuildings – Staddlestones and Shoplands (shown) are Grade II listed buildings. | |
  Newbuildings Location within Devon | |
| OS grid reference | SS7952003520 |
| Civil parish | |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | CREDITON |
| Postcode district | EX17 |
| Dialling code | 01363 |
| Police | Devon and Cornwall |
| Fire | Devon and Somerset |
| Ambulance | South Western |
| UK Parliament | |
There is a local church, Beacon Church, providing regular services. Newbuildings is served by the Dartline 369 bus route between Morchard Bishop and Exeter.[1] A postbox in the hamlet is collected daily by Royal Mail.[2] A BT telephone box was repurposed to contain an emergency defibrillator in 2021, with funding from a local charity.[3]
History
Newbuildings, occasionally referred to as New Buildings[4][5] and less commonly New-Buildings,[6] has been settled since at least 1650. Newbuildings was a frequent stopping place for coach travellers – an inn, the Hare and Hounds, was purpose-built to accommodate travellers and provide a resting place for horses; the inn is now a private cottage.[4] Local historian[7] Daphne Munday, in her work A Parish Patchwork, speculates this could be the origin of the hamlet's name.[8] Newbuildings is mentioned in John Ogilby's 1675 coaching map as being on the route from Exeter to Barnstaple.[9] The Bishop of Derry, Ezekiel Hopkins, was born in nearby Sandford in 1633, later transferring to Derry, Ireland.[10] The hamlet shares the name of Newbuildings, a County Londonderry village; it is unknown whether either settlement's name was influenced by Hopkins or the naming is coincidental.
A school was set up in the room of a local house in 1743, and was in use until 1874 when work began to establish a national school. The subsequent school was completed around 1876,[11] and the construction, alongside a school in the nearby East Village hamlet, cost £500.[11] The school had only a single room, with teachers facing difficulties as a result, and functioned as a place of worship on Sundays.[8][4]
A blacksmith and wheelwright were established in buildings built alongside the Hare and Hounds inn.[8] By 1800, an unofficial local census recorded 351 dwellings in the Sandford parish, which included Newbuildings and the nearby East Village hamlet.[12] The Hare and Hounds was still recorded as being a public house in the year 1825,[13] and a machinist, blacksmith, wheelwright, and schoolmistress are recorded as living in Newbuildings in 1878.[10] It is unknown exactly how long after 1825 that the Hare and Hounds ceased to function as a pub, becoming the private cottage it is today.[4]
The school later became Beacon Church, part of the combined "Parish of Sandford with Upton Hellions", and continues to provide regular services to residents of Newbuildings and nearby areas.[14][15] In 2024, locals marked the 80-year anniversary of D-Day at Beacon Church.[16]