Bideford, Devon : Historical writing

Descriptive gazetteer entries

These other entries in our collection of descriptive gazetteers are also about Bideford. You may be able to find further references to Bideford in the descriptive gazetteers by doing a full-text search here.

Place Type of entry Source
Bideford parish, municipal borough, and seaport Bartholomew
BIDEFORD a town, a parish, a subdistrict, and a district Imperial

This additional information from our descriptive gazetteers is for locations within the parish or parishes associated with Bideford.

Place Type of entry Source
Higher Winsford village Bartholomew

Travel writing

This website includes the complete texts of books describing journeys around Britain, written between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries. Selecting one of the links below will take you to the first reference to Bideford within the selected text. This will not always be a description of a visit: travellers often mention places other than where they are, for example as a basis for comparison.

Traveller Section No. of Refs.
Daniel Defoe Letter 4, Part 1: North Cornwall and Devon 18
William Camden Cornwall and Devon 1
Daniel Defoe Letter 3, Part 2: Salisbury and Dorset 1
Daniel Defoe Letter 10: Lancashire, Westmorland and Cumberland 1

This website includes two large libraries, of historical travel writing and of entries from nineteenth century gazetteers describing places. We have text from these sources available for these places near your location:

Place Mentioned in Travel Writing Mentioned in Historical Gazetteer
Landcross 0 2
Littleham 0 1
Westleigh 0 3
Weare Giffard 0 2
Northam 1 2
Westward Ho! 0 1
Abbotsham 0 2
Monkleigh 0 2
Appledore 0 2
Horwood 1 2
Instow 0 2
Alwington 0 2
Alverdiscott 0 2
Huntshaw 0 2
Great Torrington 3 2
Newton Tracey 0 2
Frithelstock 0 2
Fremington 0 3
Buckland Brewer 0 2
Parkham 0 2

Names from historical writing

The following appear as names for Bideford. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

Name Author Source
BEDIFORD William Camden Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).
Daniel Defoe A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies (London: JM Dent and Co, 1927).
BIDDEFORD Daniel Defoe A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies (London: JM Dent and Co, 1927).
BIDDIFORD Daniel Defoe A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies (London: JM Dent and Co, 1927).
BIDEFORD John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
John Marius Wilson Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (Edinburgh: A Fullarton & Co., 1870-72).
BIDIFORD Daniel Defoe A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies (London: JM Dent and Co, 1927).

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

  • The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
  • Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
  • References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.