Zeal Monachorum
| Zeal Monachorum | |
|---|---|
 Lane at Lower Burston, near Reeve Castle |
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 Zeal Monachorum
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| Zeal Monachorum shown within Devon | |
| OS grid reference | SS7204003537 |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Police | Devon and Cornwall |
| Fire | Devon and Somerset |
| Ambulance | South Western |
| EU Parliament | South West England |
| UK Parliament |
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Zeal Monachorum (Latin translation Cell of the Monks) is a village and civil parish in the Mid Devon district of Devon, England, about 18 miles (29 km) north-west of Exeter, situated on the River Yeo. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 398. The village is in the electoral ward of Taw whose population at the 2011 Census was 1.660.
The parish of Zeal Monachorum covers an area of almost 3,400 acres (1370 hectares) at a height of 280 - 640 feet (200 m) above sea level (85 – 195 metres). It lies at the centre of Devon, situated between the A3072 Okehampton to Crediton road on the south and the B3220 Torrington to Morchard Road on the north, about halfway between Crediton and Okehampton. The village itself is on the south-facing hillside of the Yeo valley looking towards Dartmoor.
The civil parish includes a number of hamlets such as East Leigh, Leigh Cross and Waie.
A mile to the south-west of the village is Reeve Castle, a large turreted house dated 1900 and restored from a ruinous state in the late twentieth century.
In the Domesday Book (1086) the present parish of Zeal Monachorum consisted of four manors, Zeal Monachorum and Burston (both known as Limet, because of their proximity to the River Limet or Yeo), Newton and Loosebeare.
There is a local Saxon reference dated AD967 to land at Lesmanoac, and early maps refer to the settlement as Monkenfield, Munkton and Monks Nymet. The present name, written earlier as Sele and Zele, is said to derive from the fact that the manor of Zeal Monachorum had been given to the Abbey of Buckfast in 1018 by King Cnut (along with the manor of Down St Mary), hence a "cell of the monks" ("celle" in Old French and "cella" in Latin). The manor remained the property of Buckfast Abbey until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. The link with the Cistercian abbey is seen on the village sign at the top of Town Hill outside the church. The sale of the manor of Monckenzeale or Zealemonachorum is reported in documents of 1616.
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Wikipedia