Bampton and Field Names by Hartland
Escot is located within East Devon. Historically it formed part of Hayridge Hundred with Cadbury, Chulmleigh, Cannington, Langford in Tamerton Foliot and Eggbuckland, Monk Culm, Blackberry / Saint Hill, Silverton, Englishayes, Southcott, Langtree, Week...Stourton, Welland, Wilson, Yardbury, Westcott in Thelbridge parish and Witheridge, East Worlington, Shute, Thelbridge hundreds. Yeo of west and Crediton.
Outer Bampton [Devon] was occupied by the Romans from 55 BC to 410 AD. Saxon placenames Sparkhayne, Pipshayne, Benshayes, Petton, and Hayne featured defensive mounding crossing streets perpendicular to circular monastic yards. By the time of the Norman conquest, a manor house mill, corn mill, and a barton extending farming. In the Domesday Book, Bampton is referred to as the Hundreds of Baentona. Kersdown Barton farm stands next to where the Barton house once stood. Bampton Parish is bounded by Askam, Barton, Morland, Shap, Lowther. At the south western extremity of the parish, in the Earl of Lonsdale's manor of Thornthwaite, is the beautiful lake Haweswater. Besides the villages of Bampton and Bampton Grange, the parish also includes several small hamlets, amongst which are Bombey. Butterwick, Low Knipe, Roughill, Measand in Mardale on the west side of Haweswater lake.
A great Roman causeway branched off near Penrith, by Brougham Castle, Temple Sowerby, Kirkby Thore and passed to that largest of all the Roman roads, Watling Street, which extended from the wall in Northumberland, through Durham and Yorkshire, to Dover. Though most of the sites of the Roman roads are now occupied by the present turnpikes, yet vestiges of them may still be traced in various directions. While the stations on the wall were well garrisoned, it was impossible for the Picts and Scots to pass them, soldiers being ready to oppose them in every direction. Constantine was the first emperor who neglected this barrier and its stations, and he is said to have suppressed their garrisons and removed most of the troops from the frontier to the towns in the interior of his territories, where they soon became enervated by a soft and inactive life of pleasure and amusement. After the removal of the garrisons, the northern tribes, freed from these powerful restraints, made innumerable incursions into the Roman provinces to the great detriment and annoyance of the inhabitants. Two out of the four Roman legions brought over into Britain in the reign of Cladius, remained till the last. The ninth legion was surprised and destroyed by queen Boadicea, and the fourteenth and the vexillarii of the twentieth, were in the battle which decided the fate of that heroine. The twentieth, called also valens vitrix, though it stayed a long time, seems to have been recalled before the Romans finally abandoned the island, for it is not noticed in the notitia. The legio secunda Augusta is mentioned in that record, and seems to have been the last; for though the legio sexta victrix also continued to the last, it did not come over to Britain till the reign of Adrian.
Military roads led from it to Moresby, Old Carlisle, and towards Ambleside. Whether this was the Virosidum, the Volantium, or the Olenacum, of the Romans, historians are at variance; but the latter is generally supposed to be at Old Carlisle, about one mile S. of Wigton, and was garrisoned by the Ala Herculea. The remains of this station are scattered over several acres; and a great number of sacrificial instruments, altars, coins, and other antiquities have been found here. Abela, the next station on the coast south of that at Ellenborough, is situated at Moresby, nearly two miles N. by E. of Whitehaven; and was garrisoned by the Numerus Barcarorium Tigritensium. Many antiquities have been found here also, and on the shore are come caverns called Pict's Holes. Old Penrith, about five miles north-west of the town of Penrith, is the Bremetenracum of the Romans, and had a military way, twenty-one feet broad, leading from it to the wall. The site of this station comprised an area of about three acres, and traces of its foundations and outbuildings are still observable. The Cunues Armaturarum, a troop of horse armed in the most complete manner, was in garrison here. It has been observed that these stations, extending over the country are fourteen miles apart, so that it is probable that was the distance of a Roman stage.
Roman Roads generally consisted of a regular pavement, formed by large boulder stones, or fragments of rock, embedded in gravel, and varied in width from four to fourteen yards, and were carried over rivers, not by bridges, but by fords. The principal Roman road which diverged from the grand military way on the wall, extended from Carlisle, the Longuvallum of Antonius, to Kinderton, (Condate) near Middlewich, in Cheshire, passing in its route Penrith, Kendal, and Lancaster, and having various branches to all the neighbouring stations.
Two stations on the north side of the wall were situated at Bewcastle, ten miles N. by E. of Brampton, and at Netherby, two and a half miles N.N.E. of Longtown, and there still remains at the former place a deep ditch and part of a lofty vallum, in the area of which the church and castle are situated. Here it is supposed the legio secunda Augusta was garrisoned; and tessellated pavements, coins, and altars have been found there. A Roman road extended from Bewcastle to Netherby, which Camden supposed to be the Æsica, where the tribune of the first cohort of the Astures was garrisoned. Stations were erected by Theodosius, extending southward through Cumberland and Westmorland, in order to impede the progress of the Caledonians, who so frequently succeeded in passing the wall at Solway Frith. The first of these was Virosidum, situated on a rising ground at Ellenborough, near Maryport. It was surrounded with double ditches, and commanded an extensive view of Scotland; and has been a perfect magazine of Roman antiquities.
The small ancient market town of Bampton in the parish of Bampton Hundred, the Archdeaconry and the Diocese of Exeter holds the Church (St. Michael) is a large ancient structure, with a tower and six bells instead of five. St. Luke's Chapel was built in the late Norman settlement. ESCOT / HISCOCK/A SCOTT, are first recorded in 1227, is built on the site of Sir Walter Yonge's mansion, finished c. 1688. It falls within Ottery Deanery for ecclesiastical purposes. Escot was formed into a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1840. Escott names were found in Cornwall- Estcourt, Eastcourt, Estcott... The first Escotts appeared in Hockworthy of Bampton in the late 1600s;after that there were many living in the village were cordwainers and shoemakers, bakers. Hiscott in Tawstock parish and Fremington hundred are by Uffculme, Donningstone parish of Hackpen in Bampton hundred. In the mid 1600s, a stone five-arch bridge in Bampton stood across the river until 1790.