"A straggling village, in three detached portions called East and West Sandford and New Buildings, in the Vale of the small river Creedy from 2 to 4 miles north of Crediton."

In actual fact, the parish known as Sandford is more complex than White suggests. East Sandford, more usually called East Village, has expanded to include a hamlet formerly referred to as Dodderidge in the Sandford Parish Register while to the south of Dodderidge there once was a village, now lost, called Pryston or Preston - today only a few farm buildings remain.

Upton Hellions is a parish without a village - when you drive there from Sandford, you find yourself in a dead-end and can only return by the way you came. The two parishes - Sandford and Upton Hellion  - were united in 1928 but researchers into family history in this area should note that there are separate parish registers to search before that date.

Upton Hellions Church

In the late 18th century, three unofficial censuses of Sandford parish were made by the Rev. George Brent - in 1790, 1793 and 1800.

The information recorded in each was quite comprehensive and included the address of each dwelling plus the names of the head of family, his wife and children, together with those of other inmates, servants and apprentices.

There also exist two even earlier sets of census returns for Sandford - 1775 and 1783 - and all five may be studied in the Devon Record Office.

Sandford Parish Church

From the Rev. Brent's 1800 census we know that there were then 351 dwellings in the parish which included East Village, New Buildings and the outlying hamlets. This was not a total of houses but of households. In many cases, several households were living together beneath a single roof. The total population came to 1703 people including 40 in the village workhouse which was housed in a corner of the churchyard.