[1] The village, which is built into the wooded sea cliffs of the north Devon shore, has a steep pedestrianised cobbled main street with traditional architecture.

[6] The area has had human habitation since the Iron Age as there is a hillfort at Windbury Head northwest of the village.

[7] In the late 14th century, during the reign of Richard II, the Manor of Clovelly was bought by the judge Sir John Cary.

The village remained an agricultural parish until the late 16th century, when the squire, George Cary had the stone breakwater erected creating a harbour.

He also erected fish cellars and warehouses at the cliff base and cottages along the banks of the stream that provided the only route to the shore from the plateau above.

[9] Clovelly's preservation owes much to Christine Hamlyn who dedicated herself to renovating and expanding the ancient cottages while beautifying the village.

The village is served by Stagecoach bus service 319; the route includes Barnstaple, Bideford and Hartland.

[28] An 18th century chapbook entitled The History of John Gregg and his Family of Robbers and Murderers explains that "Chovaley" (i.e., Clovelly) was once the home of a tribe of fictional cannibalistic bandits.

It is alleged that Gregg and his extended family of dozens were eventually tracked down by bloodhounds and were burnt alive in three fires.

[29] Writer Daniel Codd observes that a stretch of Clovelly Bay is called "the Devil's Kitchen"—"an apt name indeed if there is any truth in the ghoulish story of the Gregg family".

[30] The surgeon Campbell De Morgan (1811–1876), who first speculated that cancer arose locally and then spread more widely in the body, was born here.

This event led to the founding of the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society early the following year with the object of:[34] giving relief and assistance to the widows and orphans of fishermen; and of mariners, members of the Society, who lose their lives by storms and shipwreck on any part of the coasts of the United Kingdom, while engaged in their lawful occupations; and also to render necessary assistance to such mariners, soldiers, or other poor persons as suffer shipwreck upon the said coasts.Local resident Joseph Harvey Jewell and his wife Mary Ann Jewell were two of only ten passengers to survive the wreck of the General Grant in 1866.

[36] Clovelly is also described by Charles Dickens in "A Message from the Sea"[18] and was painted by Rex Whistler, whose cameos of the village were used on a china service by Josiah Wedgwood.

In Susan Coolidge's In the High Valley (1890), part of the Katy series, a walk into Clovelly is described: ...–surely a more extraordinary thing in the way of a street does not exist in the known world.

[38] Actor Joss Ackland and his wife Rosemary bought a property in Higher Clovelly on the outskirts of the village in 1989.