The parish is surrounded clockwise from the north by the parishes of Clyst Honiton, Aylesbeare, a small part of Colaton Raleigh, Woodbury, Clyst St Mary and a small part of Sowton.

One of its most famous incumbents was John Travers (died 1620), a Nottingham man who was brother to the famous puritan cleric Walter Travers and who was related by marriage to another, Richard Hooker.

The manor of Farringdon was long held by the "de Farringdon" family, whose pedigree from the early 13th century to the late 16th century is given in the Heraldic Visitations of Devon.

[5] Lancelot Farringdon (d.1598) "a proper and discret gentleman in outward show", in the words of Risdon (d.1640), was the last in the male line and committed suicide, and was "found hanged in his bedchamber by his garter to the bedstead".

[6] His estates passed to his two sisters, Abigail Farringdon, the elder, married to John Drake of Peter Tavy in Devon, and Mary Farringdon, the younger sister whose share of the inheritance included Farringdon,[7] married to William Cooper.