ABSTRACT
The administration of the thirty-five allotment gardens opened up at Ridgeway Green by the Feoffees in 1850 for the benefit of poor families also took up a certain amount of time each year, particularly in the 1880s, when the depression bit hard, and arguments between neighbouring allotment holders settled. In the days before elected parish councils, the major source of power in a rural parish was often to be found in the person of a squire, or large landowner. The larger landowner, Sir John de la Pole, was indeed Lord of the Manor of Colyton, and his family had been associated with the parish since the sixteenth century, but he had his seat in the neighbouring parish of Shute. Clearly, by the middle of the nineteenth century the committee system had a powerful hold in Colyton, and similarities with the rural district councils and county councils which now perform many of the tasks undertaken by the Feoffees come to mind.
