Moretonhampstead - Home
Latest news- June 2010.
Moretonhampstead Community Church has begun! After many years as part of East Dartmoor Baptist Church, the congregation has responded to God's guidance and become independent. In partnership with other Christians from the community, we have set out to establish a locally-based vision for the Kingdom of God here. Come and explore it with us!
SHORT HISTORY OF MORETONHAMPSTEAD
Four thousand year ago Bronze Age settlers extended their hedge topped walls into the land around Moretonhampstead and there has been habitation here for something over 1000 years. To the Saxons it was known as Moor Tun – Settlement on the Moor. Moreton was mentioned in the Domesday Book compiled in 1086 when there was an amount of land under cultivation the remainder being moorland, wilderness, hillside and overgrown waste.
In the Fifteenth Century woollen cloth was the main industry of the town and by 1500 it was a prosperous small town. This industry continued until the Nineteenth Century when this gave way to tourism and beef farming.
Early transport was by horses over rough tracks there being no proper road between Moreton and Exeter until 1815. The early roads were turnpikes and there were three toll gates in Moreton. In just over 100 years Moreton went from an isolated moorland town to a commercial tourist centre. Now it is a lot easier to reach Moretonhampstead from Okehampton, Exeter, Bovey Tracey and Plymouth. A railway opened in 1866 which made a great difference to life bringing more people and quicker delivery of goods though these still had to be taken round the district by horse and cart. The railway finally closed in 1964.
MODERN MORETONHAMPSTEADMoretonhampstead lies within the Dartmoor National Park and sometimes likes to call itself “Gateway to the High Moor” and certainly the surrounding countryside is beautiful. Modern Moreton is a busy place, blessed to have all the shops essential for day to day living; an excellent butcher, two grocery shops, a florist, travel agent, newsagent, hardware and pharmacy. Moreton is also lucky to have a Health Centre and Cottage Hospital, one of the smallest in the country, with only 9 beds. Local interest groups include a Flower Club, W.I, U3A and History Society among others.
HISTORY OF MORETONHAMPSTEAD BAPTIST CHURCH
It is difficult to be definite about the background of the Baptist Chapel. One local historian says that although there was a Baptist presence in Moreton in the 1600’s, they did not have their own Meeting House until circa 1715. A gentleman built this at his own expense in the courtyard of another house in Fore Street close by the parish church of St Andrews and rented it to the Baptist Congregation on a sixty year lease. This was destroyed in one of the many fires that seem to have afflicted Moreton and a new one was built in 1787 not far from the original. Somehow this fell into decay and the present building, still in Fore Street, probably dates from towards the end of the 19th century. A local diarist, writing between 1799 and 1816 tells of several burials in the Baptist Burial Ground from 1799 onwards and the Baptist Minister was a Welshman named Jacob Isaac. At some time believers had to travel to Bovey Tracey for baptism.
PRESENT DAY The present chapel has its own baptistry and originally had the traditional balcony, now enclosed. The back and front walls are of granite though rendered on the outside.
Moretonhampstead Baptist Church became part of EDBC in 1976. The congregation became independent on 1st June 2010.
Our chapel was recently totally refurbished and we would be delighted to see visitors.
Sunday services are held at 10.30; please feel free to join us. A warm welcome awaits you!
