Earliest times to present day

Countless ages ago, the earth threw up the molten rock which was to become Dartmoor, the backbone of the County of Devon. Convulsive movements raised and lowered the land, so that the great rock mass became part of a vast continent which included the land which we now call France.

Then the sea rushed in, filling the depression which was to become the English Channel and making islands of the rocky promontories of the Continental coasts. Movements continued intermittently over thousands of years, and masses of sand, silt and pebbles were laid down around the rock mass. The ice ages came and went and, although they did not reach as far south as the embryonic Dartmoor, snow-slips which preceded the glaciers carried debris which was scattered over the Moor as “clitters.”

In warmer intervals between the centuries of ice, there were great floods of rain, which weathered and split the great rock plateau and rushed down from the high land in steep, stormy torrents - the beginning of the Taw, the Torridge, the Plym, the Dart and the Teign.

The Teign carried with it thousands of tons of rotted granite, which it laid down in its lower reaches as boulder clay. It cut for itself a narrow course through the softer rocks below the Moor and eventually poured into the sea through a sunken valley which we now call the Teign Estuary.

At the mouth of the valley, the current of the river, checked by the sea and by broken rocks, silt and sand, built up an area of beachy mud. The river, deflected by this barrier, took a sharp turn to the right and cut a way for itself at the foot of the great cliff which we now call the Ness.

The heaving crust of the earth had now become more stable. Life had established itself on the land and the brown bear, the mammoth and the sabre-toothed tiger were wandering over the countryside, hunting, and being hunted by, primitive man. The caves at Brixham and Torquay show traces of man’s habitation and there are signs that wild beasts lived there too. No doubt Palaeolithic man hunted over the hills around Teignmouth and fished in the Teign, but there is no record of inhabited caves in or near Teignmouth.

Thousands of years later, Bronze Age man lived on Haldon and he regarded the shores of Teignmouth as a good place to obtain supplies of salt for preserving his meat and for adding savour to his food.

References in the works of Greek and Roman writers show that in pre-Roman times there was a flourishing civilization in the West of England, based lay. It cut for itself a narrow course through the softer rocks below the Moor and eventually poured into the sea through a sunken valley which we now call the Teign Estuary.

At the mouth of the valley, the current of the river, checked by the sea and by broken rocks, silt and sand, built up an area of beachy mud. The river, deflected by this barrier, took a sharp turn to the right and cut a way for itself at the foot of the great cliff which we now call the Ness.

The heaving crust of the earth had now become more stable. Life had established itself on the land and the brown bear, the mammoth and the sabre-toothed tiger were wandering over the countryside, hunting, and being hunted by, primitive man.

 The caves at Brixham and Torquay show traces of man’s habitation and there are signs that wild beasts lived there too. No doubt Palaeolithic man hunted over the hills around Teignmouth and fished in the Teign, but there is no record of inhabited caves in or near Teignmouth.

Thousands of years later, Bronze Duke of Cornwall is a title in the Peerage of England, traditionally held by the eldest son of the reigning British monarch, previously the English monarch.

 The Duchy of Cornwall was the first duchy created in England and was established by royal charter in 1337.

“ DEVON “

The earliest reference to the shire by name is to be found in the Anglosaxon Chronicle under the year 851,  when “ the Alderman  ceorl with the men of Defenasoir fought the heathen army at Wicganbeorg and after making great slaughter obtained the victory.”  In 894 the form Defnum occurs , Defenum in 897, and Defenun in a charter of 955.  Somewhat earlier , in 823, the Chronicle speaks of “ the men of Devon ” as Defnas.

This tribal name was transferred, as in several other English counties, In the territory inhabited by the tribe. the Defnas , to trace the name further, derived their name from the British Dumnonii, the name of the Celtic inhabitants of south-western England , which was transferred to the Anglo-Saxons who conquered them and the Dumnonii in turn got their name from a Celtic root dumno or dubno ,  used adjectivally in the sense of “ deep ” and as a noun meaning “ world ” or “ land.” The tribal name therefore meant “ the people of the land.”

 The theory that the old name for south-western England-Dumnonia— meant “ deep valleys,” which would suit the topography of the county well ,  rests solely upon the modern Welsh form for Devon Dyfnaint, which has this meaning.

This is a piece of folke mythology but it has no other authority.


Thus the name of Devon is derived ultimately from a Celtic tribal Name - “ the people of the land.”

 Both the modern forms— Devon and Devonshire— are equally ancient, dating from the earliest days of the shire in the 9th century.  Neither usage is more correct than the other. The form we use to-day is governed largely by the euphony required in a phrase and partly by custom.

Thus we speak of Red Devon Cattle, and we used to speak of Devonshire cream.

 THE    ENGLISH    SETTLEMENT  when the countryside was being colonised and populated , and large areas of land were changing hands by

 THE DANES The Danes began visiting the English coasts for plunder early in the 9th century,  the first known raid being on Sheppey in 835.

 During the next thirty years they made more than a dozen descents on different parts and did great damage. In 851 they came as far west as Devon, but the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that the ealdorman Ceorl and the men of Devon defeated them after great slaughter at a place called Wicganbeorg. This place,

almost certainly in Devon and probably near the south coast, has been variously identified, but Wickaborough or Weekaborough, less than four miles from the shores of Tor Bay at Paignton , seems the likeliest site.

The whole of Tor Bay was wide open to sudden attack from the open sea before help could arrive—history repeated itself in the tip-and-run air raids on Torquay in 1943—and the large village of Paignton was a good prize for plundering.

From the shores of the bay old trackways led inland over the hills to further plunder and pillage, but by the time the invaders were four miles along the lanes Ceorl and his men had reached the scene and defeated them decisively. Twenty-five years later, however, in 876, the Danes captured Exeter and spent the winter there, but were thrown out by Alfred in the following summer. Within a year Alfred was obliged to withdraw into the Isle of Athelney in the face of a fresh Danish invasion of Wessex. In the meantime a nameless viking crossed to Devon from south Wales with twenty-three ships and besieged Odda, ealdorman of Devon,

 with many of Alfred’s thegns, at a place called by Asser Arx Cynuit. Here he was killed with more than eight hundred of his men, and the resistance movement in the Somerset marshes received a powerful stimulus. Arx Cynuit, too, has been variously id

THE DANES

The Danes began visiting the English coasts for plunder early in the gth century, the first known raid being on Sheppey in 835. During the next thirty years they made more than a dozen descents on different parts and did great damage. In 851 they came as far west as Devon, but the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that the ealdorman Ceorl and the men of Devon defeated them after great slaughter at a place called Wicganbeorg. This place, almost certainly in Devon and probably near the south coast, has been variously identified,2 but Wickaborough or Weekaborough, less than four miles from the shores of Tor Bay at Paignton, seems the likeliest site. The whole of Tor Bay was wide open to sudden attack from the open sea before help could arrive—history repeated itself in the tip-and-run air raids on Torquay in 1943—and the large village of Paignton was a good prize for plundering. From the shores of the bay old trackways led inland over the hills to further plunder and pillage, but by the time the invaders were four miles along the lanes Ceorl and his men had reached the scene and defeated them decisively.

Twenty-five years later, however, in 876, the Danes captured Exeter and spent the winter there, but were thrown out by Alfred in the following summer. Within a year Alfred was obliged to withdraw into the Isle of Athelney in the face of a fresh Danish invasion of Wessex. In the meantime a nameless viking crossed to Devon from south Wales with twenty-three ships and besieged Odda, ealdorman of Devon, with many of Alfred’s thegns, at a place called by Asser Arx Cynuit. Here he was killed with more than eight hundred of his men, and the resistance movement in the Somerset marshes received a powerful stimulus. Arx Cynuit, too, has been variously identified, but Countisbury Hill, where there are the remains of a considerable earthwork between the gorge of the Lyn and the sea, is very probably the site of this important battle.

In 893 there were renewed Danish attacks, one force attacking Exeter, another “ a fort in Devonshire by the north sea ” (so says the Chronicle) which can probably be identified as the burh of Pilton. These attacks were beaten off. Thereafter the south-west was left more or less in peace for nearly a century: then came a renewal of Danish raids towards the close of the 10th century. Devon and Cornwall were attacked in 981, Dorset in 982. The south-western coasts were harried again in 988, “ when the thegns of Devon met the attack with a gallantry which became famous throughout the country.”3

In 997 a more formidable force attacked the coasts of Wessex, begin-

THE DANES    53

ning with the northern coasts of Cornwall and Devon, as well as south Wales. Then they turned back around Land’s End and went up the Tamar “ burning and slaying everything that they met,” says the Chronicle, as far north as the burh of Lydford. Here they were repulsed and they returned to their ships in the river with incalculable plunder, some of it from Ordulf’s new abbey at Tavistock—founded less than twenty years earlier—which they had burned to the ground. Then they moved eastwards to Dorset, Hampshire, Sussex, and Kent.

In the year 1001 they were back in Devon, “ where Pallig came to meet them with the ships which he was able to collect; for he had shaken off his allegiance to King Ethelred, against all the vows of truth and fidelity which he had given him, as well as the presents which the king had bestowed on him in houses and gold and silver.” So says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Pallig, whoever he was, was what we to-day should call a quisling. The Danes sailed up the estuary of the Teign, burned the large village of Teign ton (probably Kingsteignton), and crossed the few miles of water to the mouth of the Exe, where they landed.1 Their intention was to take Exeter unawares, but the citizens defended their walls valiantly. At Pinhoe, just east of the city, a force of militia from Somerset and Devon assembled to relieve the town and fought with the Danes. The battle was probably fought on the slopes of the hill by Cheynegate, beside an ancient ridge-road. Not far away to the north, beside another old road, is Danes Wood, and in the parish of Plymtree, further on, Danes Mill. We are told that the morning after the battle the victorious Danes, unable to take Exeter, burnt the villages of Pinhoe and Broadclyst (Clist) “ and also many goodly towns that we cannot name ” before they departed eastwards again.

The uneasy truce of 1002 was ended by Ethelred’s massacre of the Danes, in which the sister of King Swein of Denmark is traditionally supposed to have perished. Swein, probably to avenge his sister’s death, invaded England in 1003. The south-west felt the first blow. The burh of Exeter was betrayed to the Danes by a French reeve of Queen Emma, who held Exeter in dower, and the whole town was destroyed and plundered. Thereafter the burning and the killing moved to other parts of England, and in due course (1016) Devon passed with the rest of Wessex into Danish rule under Cnut.

The Danes, during all this time, had made no settlements in Devon: they had attacked the south-west solely for plunder. Lundy is the only pure Scandinavian name: the Old Norse lundi means “ puffin.” It was “ puffin island ” to the Danes, who possibly used it as a base at times from which to harry the coasts of Wales and south-western England. On the mainland of Devon there is not a single Scandinavian place-name, in contrast to the opposite shores of Pembroke and Glamorgan.

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