The medieval borough of Harton was built at the head of the largest coombe, about two miles from the sea. Hartland is separated from its neighbouring parishes of CLOVELLY and Welcombe by two valleys, while two other coombes run from east to west and divide the parish into three sections.

Hartland is the largest Parish in Devon, situated in the far north west of the county, bordering Cornwall. In Morwenstowe Parish, Cornwall. The watermill takes its water from a leat starting from a small woodland stream within Gooseham wood before it joins the main stream. The pond was once a stream but a ruin from a nearby mill within a hamlet. At least 7 mills can be located in Hartland between 1558 and 1620, 6 of which were almost certainly for grinding grain. These granary mills were at Eddistone (2 mills), Harton (2 mills), and Etson and Blackpool (one each). Mills were often leased with small parcels of land: the Eddistone mills had 5 acres of land attached to them and Harton mills had 2 acres [128]. The seventh mill in the parish was a 'tucking' or fulling-mill, used in the process of manufacturing cloth.

Its original name was Hertiland, land or home of one called Hert, a name later becoming HEARD. The original parish church was at Cheristowe or Christ's Stow the place of the Church. After the murder of St. Nectan the church was moved to Newton The new town or Nova Villa as it was referred to in Latin. In 1068 the Church was again moved this time to Stoke or Nectanastoc as it was then known. Gytha, the mother of King Harold had the Church built at Stoke, when she founded the college of secular canons at what is now Church house.

The quadrangle battlement is most common for a village tower. They not only occur on parapets but on the transoms of windows and on the tie beams of roofs and screens and Tudor chimney-pots. These sort of fragments enclosed settlements of many town walls in Ireland. Ringforts are fortified settlements from the early medieval period of Ireland. An older Hadrians Wall is one having a road starting in Newcastle-on-Tyne to Carlisle then round the northern coast of Cumbria. It separated Scots and English who neither lived in Britain during the Roman Empire's rule where legions withdrew to the wall as it was ended by the 2nd Roman Invasion- all of the northside was called Caledonia.

Hartland was an early Anglo-Saxon estate mentioned in King Alfred's will. The largest manor in the parish was held by the Dynham family from soon after the Norman conquest until 1501 it was this family which founded the Abbey of Hartland in 1169 and replacing the college of twelve canons that were mentioned in Domesday Book. This college had been endowed with lands within the original Manor of Hartland, later to be known as Stoke Manor. Domesday Book records three other manors within the parish called Milford, South Hole and Meddon, but they were small parcels of land on the periphery.

Hartland church, which stands in the hamlet of Stoke and was the former abbey church, is still the central church for the large parish, despite its position two miles west of the borough of Harton. During the Middle Ages it was the focal point for a network of at least ten chapels. Only St Nectan's of Welcombe now survives, having been raised to separate parochial status in 1508. Stoke church is also dedicated to St Nectan, a Celtic missionary from South Wales who was reputedly martyred near the site of the church. The patronal festival which falls on June 17th is still an important event in the parish.

The Dynhams were also responsible for the foundation of the borough of Harton circa 1290. Harton is now scarcely more than a large village, but it once supported a larger population than the neighbouring town of Bideford. A second grant, dated 1559, replaced them with a Saturday market and two annual fairs. Testimonies of the market or records to ensure fair trade, list twenty-seven sales of livestock that were transacted in the market between 1615 and 1621. The Devon farmers who made such transactions came from Hartland itself (34 men), Bradworthy (4 men), Clovelly (2 men), and West Putford, Buckland Brewer, Bideford, Sutcombe and Woolfardisworthy (one each). At least 5 other farmers travelled to Harton market from across the Cornish border: 3 from Morwenstowe and 2 from Kilkhampton. Carew in 1602 referred to graziers from Devon and Somerset who fed "yearly great droves of cattle in the north quarter of Cornwall. Dynham Survey

The Hartland pew list shows clearly that the gentry and the most wealthy yeomen sat in seats near to the chancel while women and males of inferior status sat towards the west end of the church. Some families of parishes had seating arrangements at their local church and the location of the pew indicating an important social pattern in parish churches of the time, were generally abolished by Protestant reformers. Divided ownership of pews was almost universal in Hartland Church in 1613. The 1613 pew list shows that the Puritan idea of the family pew had not yet permeated as far as Hartland and whether Hartland church really was the sole place of worship for the parish by 1613 or families from the more remote corners of the parish may still have been attending their medieval chapels, or even crossing parish boundaries to attend another church.

The 1613 pew list also shows that office-holding in the parish was invariably a function of status. Hartland had an unusual form of church government at this time, consisting of 24 governors, 4 of whom were chosen every four years as an active executive body, one of these becoming Church Treasurer every year. There were also two Churchwardens who were appointed every year, and who were resonsible for lesser duties such as maintaining supplies of communion bread and wine and the washing of church linen.

HARTLAND, a small decayed market town, is situated near a rivulet, 13 miles W. by S. of Bideford, and 2 miles from, the sea, about the middle of that northwest corner of Devon which juts out into the Bristol Channel, at Bideford Bay, opposite Lundy Island. Its parish is in Bideford union, county court district, and petty sessional division, Northern division of the county, Barnstaple archdeaconry, Hartland hundred, and rural deanery.

It had 1871 inhabitants (929 males, 942 females) in 1871, living in 894 houses, on 16,700 acres. Hartland parish includes the hamlets of Millford, Meddon, Cheristow, Elmscott, Eddystone, and Philham, and the village of Stoke, from 1 to 2 miles west of the town. In old documents a borough called Harton is said to have been within this parish. There is a quay at Stoke, on the western coast, where corn, &c. is exported, And coal, limestone, &c. are imported. Hartland had a grant for a market every Tuesday, in 1280, but it has been obsolete more than sixty years. It has still two annual fairs, on the Wednesday in Easter Week, and September 25. This high and bleak parish is bounded on the south by some boggy heights, where the rivers Torridge and Tamar have their sources; and on the west by Hartland Point, called by Ptolemy the Promontory of Hercules, and by Camden, Harty Point. There is a small pier at the Point, near which fishing vessels find good shelter from south-westerly winds, under the rocky eminences which skirt the shore. Sir George Stucley, Bart., is lord of the manor, and at the court leet and baron a portreeve and other officers are appointed. Daniel Dennis Carter, Esq., William Chope, Esq., Richard Chope, Esq., James and John Haynes, Esqrs., and others, have estates in the parish.

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