14 KINGSBRIDGE 



Edmund, king and martyr, at Kingsb ridge ; and the first 

 witness states that it has had a parish and parishioners 

 separate and distinct from a time beyond all memory, and 

 that the said chapel possesses Canteria, or Chantry, and all 

 other Divine service complete, the rite of burial alone 

 excepted. It is recorded that the parishioners represented 

 the inconvenience of attending the Mother Church, which 

 they stated " is founded on the summit of a high mountain, 

 and the direct way between them for carrying dead bodies 

 to be there buried proceeds through a troublesome and 

 tedious ascent of the said mountain." Probably it was in 

 consequence of this representation that M. Litlecumb, rector 

 of the church of Churchstow, " granted unto the Abbot and 

 Monks of Buckfast permission to build a church in their 

 demense, in the vill of Kingsbridge, upon condition of their 

 granting all the profits of the said vill, belonging to the 

 church, for the maintenance of a chaplain to celebrate Divine 

 service there; and that all the inhabitants might enjoy every 

 ecclesiastical right therein, so that they visited the Mother 

 Church, with offerings, at least once in every year, to wit, on 

 the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or within eight 

 days after." The present parish church was thereupon 

 erected, and on the 26th of August, 1414, it was dedicated 

 to St. Edmund, king and martyr, and the cemetery was 

 consecrated on the following day.* 



A few words respecting the patron saint of the church. 

 " St. Edmund, King of the East Angles, having been 

 attacked by the Danes, and being unable to resist them, 

 heroically offered to surrender himself a prisoner, provided 



* A copy of the original grant for building the church (with the trans- 

 lation) may be found in the " Notes and References," at the end of Hawkins' 

 History of Kingsbridge." 



