Ashburton, Devon

The name of the town derives from the Old English æsc-burna-tun meaning 'farm/settlement with a stream frequented by ash trees'. The name is recorded in Domesday Book (1086) as Essebretone. Ashburton was then the main town of the Parish of Ashburton, in Teignbridge Hundred. In the late Middle Ages the guild of St Lawrence had effectively become the town council. During the English Civil War Ashburton was a temporary refuge for Royalist troops fleeing after their defeat by General Fairfax at nearby Bovey Tracey. The population in the 1841 census was 3,841. The town was the terminus of the Buckfastleigh, Totnes and South Devon Railway, which opened on 1 May 1872. Ashburton railway station…

]] The parish church of St Andrew is a fine 15th-century Grade One Building, with a tall tower and two aisles. The 15th-century church tower includes sculptures by Herbert Edmund Read (1885–1951), who also carved the oak reredos; (he is not the art historian Herbert Read). One window has stained glass designed by C. E. Kempe. The porch is partly Norman. St Lawrence Chapel is a Grade II* Listed Building in St Lawrence Lane in the centre of the town. Originally a chantry chapel and then a grammar school for more than 600 years, St Lawrence Chapel is now an important heritage, cultural and community centre, managed by the Guild of St Lawrence. The town's old Methodist Church (Grade II listed)…