Bratton Fleming, Devon
Church of St. Peter, Bratton Fleming Devon built of stone rubble with ashlar dressings
The earliest part of the present building is the 14c fabric to north chancel chapel. 

The 1086 Domesday Survey says &quot; Ordulf was the Saxon Lord of Bratton on the day when King Edward was ‘alive and dead’.  &amp; there were 6 manors,  the oldest being probably Knightacott.  After 1066  Bratton was the largest of lands given to Erchenbold le Flemynge (Archibald the Fleming) who probably first came to the parish c1068 making it his home . Hence, at some point, Bratton Fleming acquires its present complete name    Afterwards (time unknown) the Normans built a castle
In 1213, William de Raleigh was the first recorded rector of a church here .  He was an influential and wealthy man,  becoing Treasurer of Exeter Cathedral, a Justice of the Kings Bench and Bishop of both Norwich and, eventually, Winchester , but he had a stormy and combative relationship with the king Henry lll.  He was also the patron of Henry de Bracton d1268, the first person to seriously attempt to write down or codify the practice of English common law. De Bracton’s treatise ‘De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae’ which was the principal text book on the laws of England for over 500 years.

The le Fleming family were Lords of Bratton Fleming for nearly 400 years until Thomas le Fleming (6th Baron Slane)  died childless in 1471.  On his death Bratton passed by marriage to the Dillon family of nearby Chimwell (Chumhill) and in 1599 the manor was sold for £9,900 to the Chichesters of Youlston 

In 1667, after passing through many hands, the advowson or living of Bratton passed to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, in whose gift it remained until very recently. 
In 1705 the college presented their first rector, Bartholomew Wortley, a Fellow of the college who had remained there until aged 55 he came here, staying until his death in 1749 aged 97.   
One of his first duties was to supervise the rebuilding of the nave &amp; aisle after the catastrophic collapse of the tower into the nave in 1699 .  Wortley was a very wealthy man, his monument in the church is the finest there, <a href="https://www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/H9r4Ae9HeN">www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/H9r4Ae9HeN</a> and he left much of his fortune to his old college.  He also left the rectors of Bratton, in perpetuity: a magnificent library, fine church silver and a £15 annual payment. (The library has since been given back to Gonville and Caius College).

In 1818 William Gimingham, a former private chaplain to William Fredrick Duke of Gloucester, was appointed rector. After a relatively uneventful early incumbency Gimingham started to show those signs of the eccentricity.   During hymn singing he would often leave the church and sit on a tombstone smoking his pipe and drinking gin and water – his dog, which usually accompanied him to church, would presumably leave its accustomed place under the altar to join him. Many villagers believed, and attested, that he possessed occult power particularly to command and identify thieves and wrongdoers.  Sadly these powers do not appear to have prevented him being robbed by his own servants and he died in poverty in 1838 after the living was sequestrated.  He is buried in front of the altar. 

The rector from 1838, Humphrey Senhouse Pinder, and his wife Harriett (who died very young) were an energetic and hardworking couple.   At that time the church and its various properties were dilapidated and Pinder raised a mortgage of £1,500 towards the estimated £2000 for repairs. 
The chancel was rebuilt in 1853, followed by the nave and north aisle rebuilding c.1861 by J. Hayward.  The building was refurbished with new pulpit etc, re-pewed and a west gallery installed 
Also built was a new Rectory (now Bracken House). Pinder was also a prime mover in the establishment of the National School (now the village hall) in 1841.

The clock on the south side top stage of the tower dates to 1897 probably placed to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria.  

Picture with thanks - copyright Roger Cornfoot CCL <a href="https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2663609" rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2663609</a>
bratton fleming devon church brattonfleming