Bere Ferrers is located within West Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of Roborough Hundred. It falls within Tavistock 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 1110 in 1801 1955 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In 1641/2 248 adult males signed the Protestation returns.

A parish history file is held in Tavistock 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 Bere Ferrers 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 117/3 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 117NE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX458635. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX46SE, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 108, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 201. Geological sheet 348 also covers the area.

Illustrations: The image below is of Bere Ferrers 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:

BERE FERRERS occupies the whole of the undulating and picturesque peninsula between the Tavy estuary on the E. and the Tamar on the W. This triangular piece of country was called Birland in Saxon times, from the Welshber, "pike, spit," or the Irish bir, "point," referring to the big spit of land between these two rivers. The Ferrers acquired the manor in Henry II's time and had a house near the water's edge on the Tavy, of which some remains can be seen in the present Bere Barton, chiefly the bottom stage of what was once a small keep-like tower.

The church (St. Andrew) is exceptionally interesting. It was rebuilt (except the tower) by Sir William de Ferrers c. 1330-33, who established a collegiate church here for an archpriest and four other priests and a deacon living as a community. The building was altered in the 15th century by the enlargement of the Decorated S. transept into a full aisle with granite arcades. Much excellent 14th century work remains untouched, though some of the Decorated windows were altered in the 17th century (cf. the S. transept). The 14th century glass in the E. window is reputed to be the oldest in Devon except one or two windows in Exeter Cathedral. Among the other notable features of the church are the vigorously carved Norman font (late 12th century, of Hurdwick stone); the 16th century. seats, carved bench-ends, and book-rests; the 17th century fireplace in the N. transept; and the medieval tombs. The canopied tomb with effigies in the chancel is that of Sir William de Ferrers and his wife, the rebuilders of the church. In the N. transept is an earlier Ferrers tomb and (effigy, and also a handsome table tomb which is almost certainly that of the 2nd baron Willoughby de Broke (d. 1522).

Bere Alston, now a small town and the principal part of the parish, originated in the time of Edward I as a mining settlement. The silver-lead mines were worked here from the 1290s intermittently down to the late 19th century Reginald de Ferrers obtained a market and fair here in 1295, and shortly afterwards set up a borough. As a parliamentary borough from 1584 to 1832, Bere Alston returned a remarkable number of eminent men, including Lord Chancellor King and Sir George Beaumont.

The parish has long been noted for its black cherries and its strawberry fields. The remains of the old mines are chiefly along the Tamar, and with the deserted quays on the river are very picturesque.