Barnstaple

Barnstaple is the primary town of North Devon, England and probable the oldest borough within the United Kingdom. It is a former river port, located at the bottom crossing point of the River Taw, flowing into the Bristol Channel. From the 14th century, it turned into certified to export wool, for the reason that traders claimed that the metropolis have been d a unfastened borough in Saxon instances. This introduced great wealth to Barnstaple, whose town centre nonetheless preserves a medieval format and man or woman.

Later the town became an importer of Irish wool, however its harbour silted up, and it advanced other industries, together with shipbuilding, foundries and sawmills. Its Victorian marketplace survives, with its excessive glass and timber roof on iron columns. Barnstaple railway station is the terminus of a department line from Exeter, called the Tarka Line. Since 1974, Barnstaple has been a civil parish ruled through town council. The parish itself had a populace of 24,033 and which include the satellite settlements known as the Barnstaple Town Area, it is 53,514.