Heavitree

Heavitree is an historic village and parish situated formerly outside the walls of the City of Exeter in Devon, England, but is today an eastern suburb of that city. It was formerly the first significant village outside the city on the road to London. It was the birthplace of Thomas Bodley, and Richard Hooker, and until 1818 was a site for executions.

The name appears in Domesday Book as Hevetrowa or Hevetrove, and in a document of c.1130 as Hefatriwe. Its derivation is uncertain, but because of the known execution site at Livery Dole, it is thought most likely to derive from heafod–treow (old English for "head tree"), which refers to a tree on which the heads of criminals were placed, though an alternative explanation put forward by W. G. Hoskins is that it was a meeting place for the hundred court.

The last executions for witchcraft in England took place at Heavitree in 1682, when the "Bideford Witches" Temperance Lloyd, Mary Trembles, and Susanna Edwards were executed. (Local folklore used to associate the name with the aftermath of the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685, when Judge Jeffreys supposedly ran out of gibbets.) The last execution to take place here was in 1818, when Samuel Holmyard was hanged at the Magdalen Drop for passing a forged one pound note.

In the hundred years from 1801 to 1901, the population of Heavitree grew from 833 to 7,529, reflecting its assimilation into the expanding city of Exeter. It first became an independent Urban District, but became a part of the city in 1913. Part of the historic district is still one of the wards for elections to the City Council.

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