Ashburton is located within Teignbridge local authority area. Historically it formed part of Teignbridge Hundred. It falls within Mortonhampstead 1 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 3080 in 1801 2628 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website.In the valuation of 1334 it was assessed at £03/06/11. The lay subsidy of 1524 valued the community at £30/00/05. It is recorded as a borough from 12 cent.. It had parliamentary representation from 1640-1868. A turnpike was established in 1755. The community had a grammar school from 1593. A market is recorded from 14c.-1935.

A parish history file is held in Ashburton 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 Ashburton 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 108/15,114/3 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 108SE,114NE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX756700. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX76NE,SX77SE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Outdoor Leisure 28, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 202. Geological sheet 338 also covers the area.

Illustrations: The image below is of Ashburton as included in the Library's Etched on Devon's memory website. Other images can be searched for on the local studies catalogue.

Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:

ASHBURTON The history of the quiet little town of Ashburton, (by-passed by main roads and railways) is that of a score of Devonshire market-towns. It reached its maximum population in 1831, and then declined continuously for the next four generations. The census of 1951 shows the first increase of population (to 2,704) for 120 years, arising largely from the growing popularity of the Dart Valley among retired persons.

Ashburton took its name from the stream on which it stands, the Ashburn, now called by the commonplace name of Yeo. It became part of the vast estate of the bishops of Exeter some time before the Norman Conquest) and remained episcopal property until the time of James I, when it was alienated to the Crown, and subsequently sold to lay-men.

The town owed much to the bishops of Exeter, as well as to its natural situation in the midst of rewarding farmland and at the margin of the rich mineral wealth of Dartmoor. A market had already grown up before the end of the 12th century and a borough had been created by one of the bishops before 1238.

The Dartmoor tin trade developed spectacularly during the latter part of the 12th century, and Ashburton became the natural collecting centre for the south-eastern side of the Moor. In 1305 it became one of the four official stannary towns. The tin trade remained important at Ashburton until the early 17th century) and was carried on in a small way until well into the 19th.

Simultaneously with the rise of the tin trade, the cloth industry was established along the banks of the Ashburn, which supplied the power for a number of fulling mills. Ashburton became a considerable market for cloth, tin, corn and cattle, and had two great annual fairs. It declined after the Black Death and not until about the 1580s did it experience a renewal of its old prosperity, arising from the development of the " new draperies." Many of its attractive old houses, some of them slate-hung in the South Devon manner, date from these years of prosperity up to 1640.

The great growth of road traffic after 1660 brought more inns and subsidiary trades, for the town lay on the main road between Exeter and Plymouth) about half-way between the two places. For some time iron-mining also was carried on near the town. An iron mill is marked on an Ashburton map of 1605, about two-thirds of a mile above Holne Bridge, on the E. bank of the Dart. The ruins of one furnace still exist, and the old shafts are to be found in the hillside immediately above. (D.A. 56 (1924), 53-4, 94-6.)

We catch a brief and unflattering glimpse of Ashburton in the pages of Celia Fiennes (1698): " this Ashburton is a poor little town - bad was the best inn." Probably Ashburton's greatest days were in the 18th century, before the cloth industry fell upon evil days and while the road traffic still clattered and thundered through its narrow streets.

The ending of the East India Company's monopoly of the China trade in 1833 brought disaster to Ashburton's trade, and the population fell as unemployed woollen workers drifted elsewhere. Then the opening of the South Devon Railway in 1846, by-passing the town by several miles, killed the greater part of its coach and wagon traffic, except purely local trade, and so the decline went on. The arrival in 1872 of a branch railway from Totnes - one of the most picturesque little railways in England - did nothing to revive the dying town; and it mouldered gently on into the 20th century, losing its young people to places like Torquay and Newton Abbot, and attracting only the elderly, looking for peace and quiet and reasonably cheap living.

Apart from the slate-hung houses and one or two picturesque parts like Kingsbridge Lane, the only notable thing to see in Ashburton is the parish church (St. Andrew). Its granite tower is one of the handsomest in Devon. Ashburton is essentially a 15th century church, with unusual granite arcades and good bossed roofs. There are some traces of earlier work, the chancel being mostly 14th century in date, but the church has been much altered and "restored." The fine rood-screen was chopped up for firewood. The present screen, designed by G. E. Street, who restored the church in 1881-3, is out of keeping with a Devon church, being more of the East Anglian type. Behind the organ is a memorial to John Dunning) 1st Lord Ashburton, who was born at Gulwell, in the adjacent parish of Staverton, and educated at Ashburton Grammar School. Among others educated at the grammar school, which was founded in 1314 by Bishop Stapeldon, were William Gifford (1756-1826), the son of a glazier at Ashburton, who became the first editor of the Quarterly Review', John Ireland (176I-1842), son of an Ashburton butcher, who became Dean of Westminster; and possibly John Ford the dramatist, who was born at Bagtor in llsington, not far away. The grammar school is built on the site of the chapel of St. Lawrence, the tower of which may still be seen.