According to village folklore in Aveton Gifford a property in the centre of Fore Street  was known as Beezelbub’s Castle and got this name because at one time in her life a woman called Joanna Southcott lived there.

Joanna was born at Gittisham in April 1750, was baptised in Ottery St Mary and held menial jobs in various parts of Devon, one of them presumably in the Aveton Gifford area.  She became intensely religious and whilst living with a sister in Plymtree, declared that she had experienced visions and she began to write prophecies in rambling prose and doggerel verse. These she sealed in envelopes to be opened when her predictions were supposed to come about.

She claimed mystic powers and wandered the country trying to convince people of this. When some of her predictions actually occurred she began to build up a following and she eventually settled in London where she established chapels for her many followers and issued signed papers to them which certified them when the millennium came.

In 1802 she announced that she would give birth to Shiloh, the second Christ, and twelve years later at the age of 64 actually exhibited signs of pregnancy. On her death in December of that year an autopsy was carried out and the cancer which was the cause of the symptoms was discovered.

The opinion of this poor deluded woman by the people of Aveton Gifford is revealed by the name they gave to her supposed residence “Beezelbub’s Castle”.