Later it imported Irish wool, but its harbour silted up and other trades developed such as shipbuilding, foundries and sawmills.

A Victorian market building survives, with a high glass and timber roof on iron columns.

[citation needed] The earliest local settlement was probably at Pilton by the River Yeo, now a northern suburb.

Pilton is recorded in the Burghal Hidage (c. 917) as a burh founded by Alfred the Great,[7] and may have undergone a Viking attack in 893,[8] but by the later 10th-century Barnstaple had taken over its local defence.

It then passed through several families, before ending in the hands of Margaret Beaufort (died 1509), mother of King Henry VII.

[10] The town's wealth in the Middle Ages rested on being a staple port licensed to export wool.

Barnstaple was one of the "privileged ports" of the Spanish Company,[12] (established 1577), whose armorials appear on two mural monuments to 17th-century merchants: Richard Beaple (died 1643), three times Mayor, and Richard Ferris (Mayor in 1632), who with Alexander Horwood received a payment from the Corporation of Barnstaple in 1630 for "riding to Exeter about the Spanish Company.

"[13] in St Peter's Church, and on the decorated plaster ceiling of the old Golden Lion Inn,[13] Boutport Street, now a restaurant beside the Royal and Fortescue Hotel.

[14] The merchants also built almshouses, including Penrose's, and backed their legacy with elaborate family monuments inside the church.

[11] Although Barnstaple's trade in 1680–1730 was surpassed by Bideford's, it retained economic importance into the early 20th century,[11] manufacturing lace, gloves, sail-cloth and fishing-nets, with extensive potteries, tanneries, sawmills and foundries, and some shipbuilding still carried on.

Barnstaple Town Council meets at the Guildhall on High Street and has its offices at Barum House on The Square.

Its early status as a borough was ambiguous; in 1340 the town's guild claimed it had been incorporated in 930 by King Athelstan in a charter which had since been lost.

[30] In 1993 the town council acquired Barum House on The Square to serve as its offices, but continues to use the Guildhall for meetings.

It was founded at the lowest crossing point of the River Taw, where its estuary starts to widen, about 7 miles (11 km) inland from Barnstaple Bay in the Bristol Channel.

Most of the town lies on the east bank of the estuary, connected to the west by the ancient Barnstaple Long Bridge, with 16 arches.

In the late 1970s it gained several industrial firms due to the availability of central government grants for opening factories and operating them on low or zero levels of local taxation.

One success was the manufacturing of generic medicines by Cox Pharmaceuticals (now branded Allergan), which moved in 1980 from a site in Brighton, Sussex.

A lasting effect on the town has been the development and expansion of industrial estates at Seven Brethren, Whiddon Valley and Pottington.

Whilst the 1989 opening of the improved A361 connection to the motorway network assisted trade in ways such as weekend tourism, it was detrimental to some distribution businesses.

These had previously seen the town as a base for local distribution, a need removed when travelling time to the M5 motorway was roughly halved.

The year 2018 also saw government investment through Coastal Community grants and Housing Infrastructure funds £83 million to upgrade the North Devon Link Road.

The museum has an "arts and crafts" appearance with tessellated floors and locally made staircase and decorative fireplaces.

The Grade II listed St Anne's Chapel[45] was restored in 2012 and is used as a community centre that can accommodate 60 people.

[46] It was an ancient Gothic chantry chapel, whose assets were acquired by the Mayor of Barnstaple and others in 1585, some time after the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Built on the far side of the street at the same time as the Pannier Market, Butchers' Row has ten shops with pilasters of Bath Stone and wrought-iron supports for an overhanging roof.

In early 2020, the local Council web site provided a summary of the Pannier Market: "Largely unchanged in over 150 years, Barnstaple's historic Pannier Market has a wide range of stalls, with everything from fresh local produce, flowers and crafts, to prints and pictures, fashion and... two cafés.

It consists of 1.6 miles (2.6 km) of new road and a 447 yards (409 m) long, five-span bridge, and was expected to have cost £42 million.

The Church of St Mary the Virgin in the suburb of Pilton is 13th-century and a Grade I listed building; Holy Trinity, built in the 1840s but necessarily rebuilt in 1867 as its foundations were unsound.

The Roman Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception is said to have been built to designs supplied by Pugin, in Romanesque Revival style.

[69] In February 2010 a Cornish Pilot Gig Rowing Club was established, bringing the sport to Castle Quay in the centre of Barnstaple.