BRANSCOMBE, a village and a parish in Honiton district, Devon. The village stands on the coast, 4½ miles E of Sidmouth, and 8 S by E of Honiton r. station; and has a post office under Sidmouth. It is a straggling but very pleasant place; and carries on a manufacture of pillow-lace. The parish comprises 3,422 acres of land and 65 of water. Real property, £4,218. Pop., 936. Houses, 199. The property is subdivided. The manor belonged, before the Conquest, to the Dean and Chapter of Exeter. Edge or Egge, in a valley N of the village, was the residence, in the time of Edward III., of the Branscombe family; and thence till 1609, of the Wadhams, the last of whom founded Wadham College in Oxford. Three valleys, each traversed by a stream, diverge from the vicinity of the village, and are flanked by picturesque hills. A small bay below the village bears the name of Branscombe mouth, and is famous for calcedonies. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Exeter. Value, £190.* Patrons, the Dean and Chapter of Exeter. The church is cruciform, and partly Norman, partly English; has a central tower in disrepair; and contains an ancient monument with two kneeling effigies

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))