The Manor of Pilton which belonged to a Benedictine Priory, passed at the Dissolution to the Chichester family, and is now held by the Hon. Mark G. K. Rolle, who owns a great part of the parish. An annual fair was granted to Pilton in 1344. Pilton House is the seat of Charles H. Williams, late MP for Barnstaple. Upcott, about 1½ miles north west of the town is the property of Lieutenant-Colonel William Harding. Raleigh factory, formerly occupied as a woollen factory and afterwards used as a lace mill, is now used as a furniture manufactory.

The church (St. Mary) stands on an eminence near the north entrance to the town. The Benedictine Priory of which it formed a part, was one of the most important and ancient ecclesiastical establishments in the neighbourhood, and formed a cell or appendage to the Abbey of Malmsbury. According to Leland, Speed, and others, it was founded by King Athelstane, and apart from the documentary evidence, copies of the official seal of the priory are in existence which bear upon them the figure and name of that monarch. A list of the successive priors is extant, dating from 1200 to the Dissolution, when the priory and adjoining estates, which were valued at £56 12s 8d, were leased by Henry VIII. Some of the monastic buildings were probably destroyed about this time, but the church and chapelries appear to have undergone but little alteration until the Civil War of 1646, when the tower was partially demolished, as appears from an inscription over the porch, and the extensive buildings on the north and east sides laid in ruins. The tower was rebuilt in 1696, and now possesses the finest and largest peal of eight bells (with the exception of Exeter) in the west of England.

The church consists of a chancel, aisle, nave, and north and south aisles. the north aisle, which is separated from the nave by three plain and massive early English arches, seems originally to have had a sloping roof with no windows. The present wagon roof was erected in 1639 when four windows were inserted. The south aisle, with the chancel aisle has six arches and dates from the middle of the 15th century, with the exception of the south wall which was partially rebuilt in 1875. The church has been recently fitted with open seats of American pitch-pine in lieu of the high and narrow pews; the oak plates and hammer  beams formerly concealed by a plaster cornice in the style of the 18th century, have been cleaned. The roofs of the nave, and the north and south aisles have been restored, and the inter-spaces filled with panelling. In the chancel is the ancient burial place of the Chichester family; the earliest inscription records the death of Richard Chichester in 1498, and there are others to Sir John Chichester (1590) and Sir Robert (1627). The latter has six life-size stone effigies. The carved canopy over the font, and the handsome rood screen are covered with paint. Attached to the pulpit is an iron hand and arm holding an hour glass. There are projecting corbels against the pillars of the north aisle, marking probably the site of a "gild" altar, and there are brasses to Alexander Bret (1536) and Robert Bret (1540). The church contains a reredos.

The living, a vicarage valued at £105, including about 20 acres of glebe, is in the gift of C. W. Hodge Esq. The incumbent is the Rev. W. C. Hall MA, who has erected a neat modern residence. The tithes, formerly belonging to the priory, have been mostly sold to the landowners. The National School, built in 1840 by the present vicar, was enlarged and improved in 1874 at a cost of about £65.

The parish lands, &c., which have been vested in feoffees from an early period for poor parishioners, comprise eleven almshouses, with 30 inmates. The charity derives yearly £53 0s 11d from stock and money received in fines on the granting of leases. The stock was purchased by the feoffees at various times with money received for dilapidations. The income is chiefly distributed to the poor in clothing; and the feoffees subscribe to schools.

Some of the almshouses were rebuilt in 1849 by the Rev. Thomas Bowdler, and others by the late T. W. Harding Esq. St Margaret's Hospital, for the reception of lepers, stood in this parish, and its site, and the land and buildings belonging to it, were sold to the feoffees of the parish lands, in 1735, for £70, on condition that they should continue to appoint, as vacancies occurred by death, a prior brother and sister of the said hospital from among the poor at Pilton, and divide among them the clear yearly rents of the property belonging to the hospital. For the year ended Lady-Day 1877, £2 9s was received as dividends; £75 8s 3d from rents and £9 from dilapidations. £21 was paid to the prior brother and sister."