A Short History of Tavistock

The Abbey Chapel

Tavistock is on the river Tavy, (which runs into the river Tamar, the border between Devon and Cornwall) after which it is named. The town is in the county of Devon in the UK and lies between Plymouth and the Dartmoor National Park and has been inhabited for at least the last 1,000 years. It is a market and stannary town, (which was also built on, and with, the ruins of an abbey, established in 981, some 100 years before Westminster Abbey). Today Tavistock is a thriving community with an annual balloon festival and goose fair, and is a popular tourist destination.

The Abbey

The Earl of Orgar established the monastery in the names of St. Mary and St. Rumon, which, so the story goes, had to be rebuilt after Danish Vikings burned it down in 997. (As this was before the conquest of England by the Normans, who were also Vikings, there were no family ties to hold them back. So they raided inland as far as Lydford where there is a stone near the Norman castle to ‘Erik the Red’. This was erected in 1997 as a reminder to others). The abbey was built originally to serve Cornwall, Devon being served by a monastery in Exeter.

Much later, by 1290, the abbey church was rebuilt again, and most of the abbey by 1460. Presumably, each time, they used more robust construction methods and adopted the latest in ecclesiastical design.

The abbey is described as being a Benedictine abbey. This means little, as it was likely to have been an autonomous abbey ruled by the abbot as he saw fit.

Markets and Fairs

Back in 1105, in a relatively quiet building, or rebuilding period, the King (Henry I) handed out a Royal Charter to the abbey, which seems to have been the way things were licensed in those days, for a weekly market to be held. It was to become known as a Pannier Market, because goods were carried in panniers. Other events, called ‘fairs’, were also licensed, including one that lasted three days, called the Goose Fair. In 1552 the lord of the manor, the Earl of Bedford, was also granted two annual fairs. Clearly, these decisions were not made lightly. And that is how it is today. There is an annual Goose Fair and a weekly Pannier Market.

Stannary Status

With the growing importance of tin mining on Dartmoor, Tavistock was elevated to the status of a stannary town, this time by a Charter of Edward I in 1305. (One of four such towns in Devon, the others being Ashburton, and Chagford. Plympton was the fourth after it made it in 1328. It is noticeable that these towns have a superior ‘air’ and some sumptuous architecture compared with the ‘norm’). Tin was weighed and stamped and a court was held to regulate mining activity across Dartmoor. Tin ‘coinage’ was also collected for the monarch. It is nowadays called a tax.

Stannary is derived from the Latin word for tin, which also gives us the symbol Sn for the chemical element for it. Tin has the atomic number 50 in the Periodic Table and this is a magic number in nuclear physics. Tin, by the way, has had a bad press, it being used in a derogatory way to describe an inferior metal. But tin doesn’t oxidise or rust like mild steel and is used to plate that metal in so-called tin cans. It was also used, along with copper, to make bronze, ages ago.

Marquesses, Earls and Dukes

Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539, the abbey was abandoned and its land was acquired by the Russell family, who were the Earls, and later the Dukes, of Bedford, as well as being known by their secondary titles as the Marquesses of Tavistock.

An Explorer

Around 1540 Francis Drake was born near Tavistock and became the first English person to circumnavigate the world, as well as being a fairly accomplished player of bowls and scourge of Spanish invaders who travelled in those times in armadas, the Spanish word for naval fleets. He was also a prime mover in having a leat (an open granite-lined watercourse) built to supply water from the moor to Plymouth. He made his home in Buckland Abbey, near Plymouth, after that was taken out of monastic use. It is now a museum to Drake and contains, amongst other items, his ‘drum’ and the history of his exploits as an explorer.

The drum (a snare drum) has been heard to play at times of national emergency closely connected with the sea. (Both heard, and played, by persons unknown). On the last occasion the Allied armies at Dunkirk were rescued by sea to fight another day. This researcher believes that these stories are made up.

If you’re going to San Francisco (remember the song?) you can visit Drake’s Bay, which he discovered in 1579, and which is 38 miles (48km) to the north of the city.

Canal and Electricity

The early economic development of Tavistock is typical of medieval times. A reliance on cloth and wool gave way to mining, initially of tin and manganese, and later of copper. Transport for mining, and trade generally, was also developed. Initially a canal was constructed and opened in 1817, using French soldiers captured in the Napoleonic wars (1803-1815) and held in Dartmoor Prison in nearby Princetown.

The 4.5 mile (7 km) canal, was designed by John Taylor, whose house is in the town in Taylor Square. The canal was designed to carry mined metal ores to Morwellham Quay on the River Tamar for shipment by sailing boats elsewhere. (Morwellham Quay is now an open-air museum with sailing boats and mining artefacts from the period).

The canal is still partly in use, but for a quite different purpose. It was designed with a gentle incline (20cm per km) so water can run down to the river at Morwellham Quay, easing down-canal transport and providing power for water wheels along the way. Today, and since 1933, this provides a hydroelectric power station with enough water to generate electricity for the national grid and power for 4,000 homes. The source of the water is a small weir by Abbey Bridge in the centre of Tavistock that takes water from the river Tavy. A recent innovation is a screening device to prevent salmon getting into the canal from the weir with later lethal consequences for those unfortunate fish.

More Building

The Dukes of Bedford made their most recent fortunes during the early nineteenth century, as they owned the land on which the copper mines were built. The Devon Great Consols Mine was one of the largest in the world. During this period, around 1840, much of the centre of Tavistock was rebuilt using greenish-grey Hurdwick stone, some from the long abandoned abbey, and that is the Tavistock you see today. This includes the Bedford Hotel, Town Hall, Guildhall, Pannier Market and Corn Exchange.

(The main part of the original abbey building still in use as a place of worship is the Abbey Chapel, which used to be part of the Abbot’s Hall).

Railways and Bicycles

In 1859 transport took another step forward with the arrival of the railway. Tavistock had two separate lines and two stations, operated by competing companies. Both were closed in the 1960s. There is an impressive viaduct still in place running to the north of the town centre, which is now part of the National Cycle Network and is known as Route 27, linking Ilfracombe, on the north, to Plymouth on the south coast of Devon.

Recent Changes

Later, in 1911, much of the estate of the Duke of Bedford had to be sold to pay off taxes (known as death duties then). The town council acquired a large part of the property in Tavistock.

The Russell family’s fortune, however, was considerable. London was their principle home town and during the 18th and 19th centuries they built much of the district called Bloomsbury including Russell, Tavistock and Bedford Squares. There is a street called Morwell Street near Bedford Square. And the Russell Hotel is mentioned in the lyrics to one of the songs in Cats, on the way to the Heaviside Layer.

Today Tavistock is a dormitory town for Plymouth, a retirement centre and a tourist destination.

With a little imagination it is easy to see how life would have been in 1100 with a thriving monastery alongside a river, probably teaming with salmon, surrounded by farmland, and moors.

Over the past 1,000 years the dominant political influence has been passed from the abbey to the Russell family and is now in the hands of the West Devon Borough Council. That sounds like a stable heritage.

Abbey Bridge

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