Welcome to Devon

Devon is an county which shares England’s south western peninsula with Cornwall and also borders Somerset and Dorset to the east. Its 2,700 square miles are home to historic towns such as Plymouth and Exeter, picture postcard thatched cottages, hilly pastoral lands, high moorlands, 300 miles of coastline with long stretching unspoilt beaches, as well as just over 1 million people.

Devon was one of the first places in the British Isles settled after the last Ice Age. Mesolithic hunter gatherers set up camps here before 6000 BC. While the earliest settlers left little behind as testament, Devon is particularly well endowed with remains from the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Indeed, Dartmoor, one of Devon’s high lying moorlands, is home to the highest concentration of Bronze Age remains in the United Kingdom. There are an estimated 5,000 hut circles from this period along with numerous standing stones, such as the famous ‘Beardown Man’, which stands three and a half metres high. These ancient features just add to the moor’s strange mystery. Dartmoor is said to be the home to pixies and haunted by several ghosts, including a headless horseman. Dartmoor was the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles.’

When the Romans arrived in the first century BC they called the loose confederation of Celtic tribes encountered on the peninsula the ‘Dumnonii’, meaning ‘deep valley dwellers’. More than at any other site in Devon the Romans left their mark on Exeter, which they called Isca Dumnoniorum, their capital in the area. Much of the old Roman city walls are still intact. Outside of the main areas of population it is doubtful that Roman presence deeply effected the daily lives of the local people: there was little reason to take efforts to influence the society of this far flung corner of the empire which afforded little in the way of exploitable resources. Even though the Romans did exploit the old Celtic tin mines the fact is that there were greater quantities closer to the empire’s core, which could be extracted with far less difficulty.

Nonetheless, the local Celtic elite seem to have learned a great deal from the Romans. Following Roman withdrawal from the province in 410 AD a local family, who may have been employed in the Roman administration, and led by a man called Caradoc, was to take over the reigns of government. This is the origin of the house which provided the Kings of Domnonia who at their most powerful ruled over Cornwall, Devon and Somerset.

No sooner had the Romans left than another power arrived in the region, which would eventually lead to the destruction of this kingdom. These people were the Saxons, who arrived in the south east of England in the 5th century. By 658 AD they had taken most of Somerset and by the end of the century parts of Devon. At this time the court of Domnonia most likely moved from Exeter for the relative safety of Cornwall. In 805 AD Devon was annexed by what had become the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Wessex. The invaders called their new territory Dyfneint, which over the centuries has been corrupted into the name Devon.

The new rulers converted Devon into an earldom which immediately found itself part of a struggle against another power in the region. The Earl’s men are said to have fought off Viking raids in booth 851 and 878 AD. Exeter was itself was badly damaged when it was sacked in 1003 at a time when Scandinavian influence in England was widespread, which led to the incorporation of the country into the Danish empire in 1012.

When England was next conquered it was by the Normans, led by William the Conqueror, in 1066. It is written that William besieged Exeter for 18 days before it surrendered. Over the coming centuries conflict would return to Devon again and again. The local aristocracy marshalled under Baldwin de Redvers held out against King Stephen in the Civil War of 1140, coastal attacks during the 100 Years War with France characterised the 14th and 15th centuries, there were skirmishes during the local elite during the Wars of the Roses, Exeter was besieged by the pretender to the throne Perkin Warbeck in 1497, the locals revolted over Henry VII’s introduction of the English Prayer Book in 1549. Famously in Plymouth Hoe Sir Francis Drake played bowls after the sighting of the Spanish Armada, and then sailed out to defeat them. The towns of Dartmouth and Exeter were taken during the Civil War in 1646. It must have been a relief that the Glorious Revolution, which began by the landing of William of Orange at Torbay in 1688, was bloodless.

The ordinary people of Devon had done little to bring all of this strife to their county. The people merely sought to eek out a living in the counties traditional industries such as farming, fishing and mining. Mining in particular reached new heights during the industrial revolution, which brought some prosperity to Devon due to advancements in tin and copper extraction. By the 20th century industrial decline encouraged ever greater numbers to seek work abroad. But industrialisation had left the railway as its legacy which in time brought a new modern industry: tourism. Devon was an obvious tourist destination with its interesting local history, mysterious moors and beautiful coastline.