As early as 1698, there was a workhouse in Crediton. During the 18th century, a union of adjacent parishes was formed to share the responsibility of providing for the poor, handicapped and disabled and to appoint paid officers to run the institution. By 1841, the Crediton Union included some 29 parishes spread out over a wide area in that part of Devon. 

The building erected in 1837 in Crediton still exists and much of it is still in use, though not quite as originally intended.

In times gone by, the front of the workhouse had an imposing flight of steps leading up to the main door under the portico. On entering, newcomers would glimpse the Board Room of the Guardians of the Poor who met regularly to oversee expenditure on behalf of their various parishes.

Crediton Workhouse - the original entrance

Sampson Kempthorne, who designed the Crediton Workhouse, used a design based on an outer hexagon. Connecting this to an internal Y - shaped building produced three areas which were divided by high walls to produce six separate exercise yards.

It's a little difficult to see quite how this worked  because after 1834, there were officially seven classes of inmate:

1. Aged or infirm men

2. Able bodied men and youths older than 13

3. Youths and boys aged between 7 and 13

4. Aged or infirm women

5. Able-bodied women and girls older than 16

6. Girls aged between 7 and 16

No distinction was made between those who were mentally normal and those classed as insane, idiotic or imbecile. These words had fairly precise meanings in all census returns between 1841 and 1891: the insane classification referred to a mentally ill person with or without periods of lucidity; an imbecile was an elderly person in a state of chronic dementia; an idiot was a person suffering from a congenital mental deficiency. In 1867, records show that there were 7 males and 9 females in these three classifications living amongst other inmates in the Workhouse at Crediton.