Collaton St Mary


Collaton St Mary is a village, parish and former manor in Devon, England, situated about 2 miles west of the town of Paignton. The village is bisected by the A385 Paignton to Totnes road. The parish is now administered within the unitary authority of Torbay, Devon.
The parish church, the Church of St Mary, a grade II* listed building was built in 1864-6 by Rev. J.R. Hogg, lord of the manor of nearby Blagdon, in memory of his daughter who died in 1864. It was one of several new churches built in the 19th century which served the needs of the expanding town of Paignton.
The village Pub is called the Parker's Arms after the Parker family, the manor of Blagdon having been purchased by Montagu Edmund Parker , Sheriff of Devon in 1789 and a younger brother of John Parker, 1st Baron Boringdon of Saltram House, Plympton.

History

The manor is not listed in the Domesday Book of 1086, as it was a sub-manor of the manor of Paignton, the 18th of the 24 Devonshire holdings of the Bishop of Exeter listed in the Domesday Book. It is first recorded in surviving records in the Book of Fees as Colethon.
Since then the name of the manor and village has changed many times, dependent on the surname of its holders, the first suffix being Coleton Clavill, after the Claville family. Walter I de Claville was an Anglo-Norman magnate and one of the 52 Devon Domesday Book tenants-in-chief of King William the Conqueror. He also held lands in Dorset. His Devonshire estates later formed part of the feudal barony of Gloucester. The subsequent holder was the Dennis family, Latinized to Dacus, "the Dane/Danish", which had branches at Orleigh and at Holcombe Burnell, also in Devon. It later became known as Collaton-Kirkham, after the Kirkham family of Blagdon. During the reign of King Edward I Sir Nicholas Kirkham, Sheriff of Devon in 1308/9, of Ashcombe, married Agatha Dennis, sister and heiress of Sir Robert Dennis of Blagdon, and following the death of Sir Robert Dennis the manor of Blagdon and others including Colaton-Clavil, passed to the Kirkham family, which shortly thereafter moved their seat to Blagdon. The Kirkham family held it for many generations. Finally the name changed to Collaton St Mary, when it became an ecclesiastical parish. The parish was created in 1864 and the foundation stone of St Mary's church was laid on 21 September of that year.

Collaton St Mary Primary School CofE