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Tavistock is a small town in West Devon located at the western edge of Dartmoor, 25 km north from the centre of Plymouth and 10 km east from New Bridge on the River Tamar which is the border between Devon and Cornwall. The present population is approximately 10,000 persons, many of whom are retired or work in the Plymouth area. The most prominent of local worthies was Sir Francis Drake, believed to have been born at Crowndale Farm, who is commemorated with a fine statue by the Austrian sculptor, Joseph Edgar Boehm, in Plymouth Road. Near the town is Kelly College, a public school founded in 1890 from a legacy left by Admiral Benedictus Kelly. During the year there are a number of special events: a traditional Goose Fair in October when all sorts of market stalls and fairgrounds fill the town, a Steam Fair in June when the Robey Trust give rides in steam engines around the town, and a Dickensian Evening in December when shopkeepers dress up in Victorian costumes, hot chestnuts are roasted in the streets and warm mulled wine is served over shop counters.

The town derives its name from the ‘stoc’ or settlement on the River Tavy, a tributary of the River Tamar, built on a hillside north-east of the present town. Its founding is credited to Ordulph, son of Orgar, the Earl of Devon, who selected the site in 974 for a Benedictine Abbey dedicated to St. Mary and St Rumon. The first abbey, made largely of wood, was burnt down and pillaged in 997 by a Danish raiding party. The second abbey was a more substantial masonry building and around it a trading settlement grew which in medieval times developed into a market town with a prosperous woollen industry. Tavistock was also one of the four stannary towns in Devon where ingots of locally mined tin were weighed and stamped by the sovereign’s representatives, and the duty paid to the Crown. In 1539 there was a dramatic turn of events when monastic buildings throughout the country were closed down on the orders of King Henry VIII. The abbot and monks were ousted from Tavistock Abbey and the abbey together with all its property was transferred to John Russell, soon to be the first Earl of Bedford, one of the king’s loyal supporters. From his family came the many Earls and later Dukes of Bedford who remotely, through local agents controlled the affairs of the town until 1911. Unfortunately the once magnificent abbey building was allowed to deteriorate and its materials used for other purposes; today the most prominent remains are the two gateways, known as Court Gate and Betsy Grimbal’s Tower.

It was the copper mining in the nearby village of Mary Tavy, started in the 1790s, which began a boom in the economy of the town that lasted until the 1870s. The prosperity of the mining culminated with the opening of the Devon Great Consols Mine, west of Tavistock, which in the 1850s was the most productive copper mine in the world. During the mid 19th century the mining activity brought considerable wealth to the Dukes of Bedford who owned the mineral rights. Some of their income was re-directed back to the town. Francis, the seventh Duke of Bedford and his successors paid for a number of fine new buildings in the town area including the Town Hall, the Guildhall and the Pannier Market. Also for the many cottage dwellings in the town and surrounding countryside which are now regarded as ‘model housing’ built to a high standard far in advance of their time. Unfortunately the local mining industry collapsed in the 1870s due to the availability of cheaper copper ores from South America and cheaper alluvial tin from Malaya. Some mines were kept open by arsenic working for a further two decades but the social and economic impacts of the decline in mining resulted in many hundreds of miners and their families leaving the Tavistock area to find work in the larger cities and overseas. It is only now that the population of the town is back to what it was in the mid-19th century.


Early in the 20th century the Russell family control and influence in the town came to an end. In 1898 the town took control of its own affairs when the Tavistock Urban District Council came into being. Some of the first councillors were shopkeepers and publicans. A few years later the Bedford Estate sold nearly alls its land in and around the town. In his 1909 budget Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, raised the level of income tax and death duties. This was seen by Herbrand, the eleventh Duke of Bedford who came to the dukedom in 1893, as a direct attack on landed interests and his response was to sell off some of his estates. Over a period of eleven days in late June and early July 1911 many of his properties in Tavistock, including ten licensed properties, were sold in 624 lots. Fortunately the new Tavistock Urban District Council led by its chairman, the chemist Richard Doble, had the foresight in 1912 to purchase from the Bedford Estate the market area and shops in the town centre as well as recreational areas and public utilities. As a result Tavistock has retained its 19th century Pannier Market and shop facades in the town area, and these together with its fine public buildings and The Meadows recreational area gives the town a character and atmosphere which makes it an attractive place to live in.

In 2004 the town was chosen as the ‘Best Market Town in England’ by the Daily Telegraph.