BURLESCOMBE, a parish partly in the hundred
of HALBERTON, but chiefly in the hundred of BAMPTON,
county of DEVON, 5 miles (S. W. by W.) from Wellington,
containing 1073 inhabitants. The living is a discharged
vicarage, in the archdeaconry and diocese of
Exeter, rated in the king's books at £11. 15. 10., enijowed
with £200 private benefaction, and £200 royal
bounty, and in the patronage of William Ayshford
Sandford, Esq. The church, dedicated to St. Mary,
contains several ancient monuments. A priory for
Augustine canons was founded at Leigh, thence called
Canonleigh, in this parish, by Walter Clavell, in.the
time of Henry II., in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
St. John the Evangelist, and St. Etheldreda: the society,
in the beginning of the reign of Edward I., was changed
by Matilda de Clare, Countess of Hereford and Gloutester,
for an abbess and nuns of the same order, whose
number, in the 26th of Henry VIII., was eighteen, and
the revenue £202. 15. 3. In 1286, the abbess obtained
a license' for a weekly market to be held here. The
gateway and the ruins of the eastern wing of the abbey
are visible in the grounds belonging to Mr. Browne.
There is a small chapel at Ashford, in which divine
service is performed eight times during summer, a
special endowment charged on the Court estate having
been given for that purpose. The summit level of the
Grand Western canal crosses this parish, in a direction
nearly parallel with the course of the river Lynot:
there .are various strata of limestone, and small pieces
of pure silver have been found in the limekilns. The
water of a spring at Ashford possesses properties
somewhat similar to those of the sulphur wells at
Harrogate, and there are indications of the existence
of coal in the vicinity.