Hawkesdown Hill, just above the village, was occupied during the
Iron Age, and remains found on the site suggest it was subject to an attack by the
Romans. In the will of
King Alfred the Great, a copy of which is in the
British Library, Axmouth was left to his youngest son
Aethelweard. By the
13th century, the manor belonged to the
Benedictine Loders Priory, but in 1414,
Henry V seized and dissolved Loders Priory, and gave the manor of Axmouth to the
Augustinian Syon Abbey. According to
Historic England, 'Axmouth was ranked as a major port by the mid-14th century and accounted for 15% of the country's shipping trade'. The remains of a late medieval fishing boat can be seen at low tide in the River Axe, just south-west of the village. Over the following years the estuary of the River Axe silted up and the village ceased to be a viable port. In 1870 the current Axmouth Harbour was developed at the river mouth, closer to the town of Seaton than the village of Axmouth, but within the civil parish of Axmouth. Within the parish of Axmouth are various historic estates including: •
Bindon, an ancient seat of the Wyke family, and inherited on marriage to Mary Wyke by
Walter Erle of
Colcombe in the parish of
Colyton in Devon, an officer of the
Privy Chamber to King Edward VI and to his sisters Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I. Erle also purchased the manor of Axmouth following the
dissolution of Syon Abbey. •
Stedcombe is a Grade I listed William and Mary house and estate, to the north of Axmouth village. It was built in about 1697 by
Richard Hallett on the site of the earlier Stedcombe House, that was destroyed during the English Civil War. The Hallett family acquired the estate in 1691 from
Sir Walter Yonge of
Escot. ==Architecture==