Totnes
Totnes is located within South Hams local authority area. Historically it formed part of Coleridge Hundred. It falls within Totnes Deanery for ecclesiastical purposes. The Deaneries are used to arrange the typescript Church Notes of B.F.Cresswell which are held in the Westcountry Studies Library. The population was 2503 in 1801 3116 in 1901 7020 in 1991. Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In the valuation of 1334 it was assessed at £08/07/08. The lay subsidy of 1524 valued the community at £143/17/11. In 1641/2 550 adult males signed the Protestation returns. It is recorded as a borough from 1018,<1505. It had parliamentary representation from 1295-1868. A turnpike was established in 1765. The community had a grammar school from 1658. Boroughs established at Bridgetown 1267, North Ford 1326. A market is recorded from 14c.-1985.
A parish history file is held in Totnes Library. You can look for other material on the community by using the place search on the main local studies database. Further historical information is also available on the Genuki website.
Maps: The image below is of the Totnes area on Donn's one inch to the mile survey of 1765.
On the County Series Ordnance Survey mapping the area is to be found on 1:2,500 sheet 121/5,6,9,10 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 121NW,SW
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX805605. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX86SW+, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 031, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 202. Geological sheet 350 also covers the area.
Illustrations: The image below is of Totnes as included in the Library'sillustrations collection. Other images can be searched for on the local studies catalogue.
A fair is known from: 14c.-1935. [It is intended to include the local section from The glove is up! Devon's historic fairs, by Tricia Gerrish, by kind permission of the author].
Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:
TOTNES is, next to Exeter and Plymouth, the most interesting town in Devon, a lively little place of some 5,500 people on a hill rising from the W. bank of the Dart. Part of the town extends across the river into the suburb of Bridgetown, which was incorporated in the borough in 1835.
Totnes does not appear in history until the reign of Edgar (959-75), and then it is the evidence of coins minted here. It is possible, indeed likely, that a small settlement existed here before a burh was set up about the middle of the l0th century, but of this we have no record. Totnes coins were minted intermittently between the reigns of Edgar and William Rufus.
The limits of the Saxon burh are probably represented by the lines of the medieval walls. This small area, about 10 acres in all, was surrounded at first by an earthen rampart, which was replaced by stone walls in the 12th century. (A Totnes priory deed (n.d. but before 1205 makes it clear there were walls at that date (Watkin, History of Totnes Priory and Medieval Town, 97) The ridge on which the burh was founded rises sharply to 100 ft. above the river at its highest ,point, where the Norman castle was built. By the end of the 12th century it is likely that the built-up area had extended down the hill from the E. gate to the river's edge, where the first bridge is said to have been built by the time of John (before 1216).
Totnes, founded as a royal burh, still belonged to the king in 1066; but William granted it, together with 107 other manors in Devon, to Juhel or Judhael, who took the name of Juhel of Totnes from his chief residence. It is likely that Juhel first built the castle at the NW. end of the burh, before he was deprived of his lands for rebellion in 1088-9.
The economic history of Totnes begins with its coins in the mid l0th century, when we may assume that there was some overseas trade. As early as 1130 Guy de Nonant obtained the grant of a fair for the town, at the feast of the Assumption of the B. V.M. (15 August). The cloth trade was the most important single industry from the start, and it was upon this that Totnes grew rich in later centuries. By Henry VIII's time it was second only to Exeter in merchant-wealth. This prosperity lasted throughout Elizabethan times and probably down to the eve of the Civil War, but for some reason Tomes failed to develop the "New Draperies," especially the serge industry which dominated the Devon textile industry of the 17th and 18th centuries. By the 1660s the industrial history of Totnes was virtually ended.
Defoe's description in the reign of Anne makes it clear that Tomes had become a good country market town again, a cheap place to live in, and that it already had the flavour of a "residential" town-"especially for such as have large families and but small estates." It has kept this character to the present day, and has, largely for this reason, grown faster than any other inland town in Devon in the past twenty years. It has excellent shops and markets, especially for country people, and a number of small flourishing local industries, of which the large bacon factory and a cider factory are the most notable. The bacon one can only dream about, but the excellent cider, like a golden vin du pays, solaces the historical traveller all over this part of Devon, most of all at the Warren House Inn in the middle of Dartmoor. Among the many minor pleasures of Totnes, one can still embark at Tomes Quay on the steam-packet for Dartmouth, an 8 m. journey down what is unquestionably the loveliest river in England. There is, alas, no second-hand and antiquarian bookshop in the town, a notable lack of enterprise on someone's part.
Totnes was regularly represented in parliament by two members from 1295 until 1868. Its parliamentary history resembles that of most of the Devon boroughs: local representatives at first, eminent merchants and such-like, and later the development of the pocket borough with all the usual attributes.
In describing the town it is best to begin at the top end, and to proceed E. to the river, and thence over the bridge to the suburb of Bridgetown. Of the castle there remains the motte or mound, rising about 55 ft. from the bailey below, and crowned by a small but perfect example of a circular keep. The inner bailey or court also remains, surrounded by a deep moat formerly filled with water and encircled by a wall of which a good deal can still be seen. Of the outer bailey only slight traces remain on the N. The earthworks (mound, moat, etc.) date from the late 11th century and were part of Juhel's castle, but the keep and the curtain walls probably date from about the mid 12th century when they supplanted the original timber defences. (At Berkhampstead castle the stone shell keep and curtain walls of the Bailey supplanted the timer defences in 1155; at Hertford castle in 1170.) The Totnes records throw no light on this development. Almost certainly the town walls were built at the same time, or shortly afterwards. Of these there
are substantial remains, especially on the E. and S. sides (see Map). Of the gates, that on the N. still stands fairly perfect, though the roadway has been lowered; and the East Gate still picturesquely bridges the High Street. It appears to have been rebuilt early in the 16th century.
Proceeding down the High Street from the castle, notice the covered walk or piazza on the N. side, formed by carrying the overhanging storeys of the houses on pillars. On the S. side of the street, the house-fronts are slate-hung to keep out the rain, as in many South Devon towns between Exeter and Plymouth. A number of 16th and 17th century houses line the street, the oldest dated (1585) example being No. 16, which was the residence of Nicholas Ball, who represented Totnes in parliament in 1584. The decorated plaster ceilings of this house, and of Nos. 10 and 32, are remarkable. No. 64 in Fore Street, and other Totnes houses, also have these rich ceilings, which were once numerous in Dartmouth also, and suggest a late 16th early 17th century school of plasterers at Totnes equal in reputation to those of Barnstaple.
On the N. side of the High Street stands the fine parish church (St. Mary), and behind it the Guildhall. St. Mary's Church was wholly rebuilt between 1432 and 1460. The nave was constructed between 1432 and 1444, the chancel 1445-48, and the handsome red sandstone tower, 1449-59. The magnificent rood-screen of Beer stone was erected in 1459-60 by order of the corporation, who directed that the chancel should be separated from the body of the church by a stone screen as in Exeter Cathedral1 (plate 8). The stone pulpit is of the same date as the screen; so, too, are the fine doors of the church. The Scott restoration destroyed a good deal of the atmosphere of the church, but could not wholly disguise its structural beauty, especially the lofty arcades with their capitals and piers of unusual design. The corporation pews (restored) are of Caroline date, perhaps 1636 when the royal arms were put up.
On the N. side of the church stood Totnes priory, founded c. 1088 by Juhel of Totnes as a cell of St. Nicholas's Abbey at Angers. Its buildings were demolished soon after the Dissolution, for the present Guildhall, which is of 16th and 17th century date, is built on part of the site. The older part of this picturesque little building dates from 1553, the main doorway and the Court Room being of this period (plate 40). The Council Chamber is dated 1624, and has a fine plaster frieze.
The Fore Street contains much interesting building, including a number of slate-hung 17th century houses and some pleasant 18th and early 19th century building of which the Royal Seven Stars Hotel will serve as example. On the Plains, at the foot of the hill, stands a memorial to William John Wills (1834- 61), a native of Totnes, who was the first man, with Burke, to cross the Australian continent and who perished of starvation on the return journey. Other eminent natives of the town were William Brockedon (1787-1854), the painter (of whom there is a fine self portrait in the Guildhall); and Benjamin Kennicott (1718-83), the Hebrew scholar.
Totnes bridge, a handsome structure, was rebuilt in 1828 by Charles Fowler, the Devon-born architect. Beyond the bridge is Bridgetown, once a borough on its own. The borough of " Bridge" was set up by the Pomeroys early in the 13th century but derived its importance from Totnes and was absorbed into it in 1835. The church (St. John the Evangelist) was built in 1835, and is the usual decent building of its period.
Extract from: Dr. Parson’s report to the Local Government Board on typhoid fever in the Totnes Urban and Rural Sanitary Districts, 1881.
The borough of Totnes has an area of 1,362 acres; the population was 4,073 in 1871, and is probably about the same now. The inhabitants belong to the classes usually met with in the market town of an agricultural district. The shipping trade is small, and there are no manufactures. The borough is of ancient date, and was formerly of considerable importance. The old town was surrounded by walls, of which the remains are still to be traced; but the present town extends in some directions considerably beyond their limits. It consists of two part&, Totnes proper in the parish of the same name, and Bridgetown in the parish of Berry Pomeroy; these two portions, anciently distinct boroughs, lie on the opposite slopes of a valley, and are separated by the river Dart, which is here crossed by a bridge. The tide extends as far as a mill weir about a mile above this bridge.
Totnes proper consists principally of a long steep street running in an east and west direction up the shoulder of a hill, and called in different. portions of its length, Fore Street, High Street, and Leechwell Street. Fore Street and High Street contain the principal shops. Fore Street begins at the bridge. High Street is separated from Fore Street by an arch, a remnant of the old walls; it is steep and narrow, and the upper storeys of some of the houses are built out on pillars over the pavement. Tile churchyard adjoins it on the north side, abutting against the back walls of the Jl0uses on that side; the basement floors of some of these houses are as much as 15-20 feet below the surface of the churchyard. Burials in the churchyard have been discontinued for some years, but ,a damp heavy smell is said to be still sometimes perceived in the basements of the houses adjoining it. From Leechwell Street, at the upper part of the town, Cistern Street and Plymouth Road branch off. There are some other streets in the flat low-lying alluvial ground by the river, and there are also some back streets and alleys higher up in the old portion of the town. This part, viz., that between Leechwel.1 Street and Fore Street, is very closely built, some of the houses having very little or no back space.
Bridgetown consists chiefly of a single street with a few alleys on either side.
The sewerage of Totnes is now being carried out according to plans designed by Mr. Appleton, C.E.., and approved by the Local Government Board. The two parts of the borough have separate systems of sewers. On the Bridgetown side the main sewer and outfall tanks have been completed and the house connexions are in progress. There are two tanks for the storage and straining of the sewage, capable of holding half a day's flow; the outlet of the tanks is tide-locked for about two hours each tide, but it is said that the outfall of the sewer into the tank is always open. On tile Totnes side the outfall is at present into a small creek which joins the river, but it is intended to construct outfall tanks similar. to those on the Bridgetown side, at St. Peter's Quay, a little below the town. This site for the tanks '''as the one originally proposed when the sanction of the Local Government Board to the borrowing of money for sewerage works was obtained, but the Town Council afterwards wished to substitute for it a site on the Town Marsh, close to the town. The latter site however was disapproved of by Mr. S. J. Smith, C.E., one of the Board's inspectors, who held an inquiry in March 1877, and the Town Council ultimately reverted to the St. Peter's Quay site. It is stated that considerable difficulties were met with in procuring it, but these are now overcome and the work will be proceeded with without further delay. The present open outfall is complained of as being sometimes offensive, and occasionally the tide backs up it and covers a spring of which the water is used for drinking. Several cases of typhoid fever occurred in 1878 in an adjoining house. The main sewers on the Totnes side have been carried out at different times, but a large part of the work has been done during the past summer, and a portion of the houses, perhaps half, have been drained into them. The new sewers are of pipes, the largest sizes being 12 inches on the Bridgetown and 24 inches on the Totnes side. The older sewers were of brick or stone and of irregular construction. Some have been allowed to remain and connected with the new system. In Leech well Lane an old 18-inch brick culvert is said to discharge into a 12-inch pipe. On both the Totnes and Bridgetown Bides the sewers are in places not deep enough to drain the houses effectually, as the level of the back yards is lower than that of the street. […]
