History of Devon
Dartmoor is thought to have been settled by Mesolithic hunter-gatherer peoples from about 6000 BC, and they later cleared much of the oak forest, which regenerated as moor.
The name "Devon" derives from the tribe of Celtic people who inhabited the south-western peninsula of Britain at the time of the Roman invasion in 43 AD, the Dumnonii: possibly meaning "deep valley dwellers" (Cornish: Dewnens, Welsh: Dyfnaint, Breton: Devnent) or "worshippers of the god Dumnonos".
[1] In February 2022, archaeologists led by Rob Bourn, managing director of Orion Heritage, announced the discovery of the remains of a woolly mammoth, reindeer, rhinoceros, bison, wolf and hyena in a cave system during the building of a new town named Sherford.
It is likely a settlement at Exeter of some sort pre-existed the Romans and that the local Brythonic tribe inhabiting the area, the Dumnonii, maintained a tradition of independence.
It appears that initially the Dumnonii tribe of Britons were a client kingdom of Rome, but from about AD 55 the Romans held at least part of the area under military occupation, maintaining a naval port at Topsham and a garrison of the 2nd Augustan Legion at Exeter, which they called 'Isca'.
This banked and palisaded fortress contained mostly barracks and workshops, but also a magnificent bath-house and was occupied for approximately twenty years.
There were several smaller forts across the county and a number of pagan shrines, as remembered in the name of the Nymet villages (Nemeton), but the lands west of the Exe remained largely un-Romanized.
The higher status locals there often lived in banked homesteads known as 'Rounds', while East Devon had a number of luxurious villas, such as that discovered at Holcombe, as well as Roman roads of the sophisticated cobbled type.
[6] The Roman episcopal structure survived, and shortly before 705 Aldhelm, abbot of Malmesbury, wrote a letter to King Geraint of Dumnonia and his bishops.
The Welsh Triads name Celliwig in Cornwall as a possible site of a royal court; another is High Peak, close to Sidmouth.
The former Roman city of Exeter may have become an ecclesiastical centre, as evidenced by a sub-Roman cemetery discovered near the cathedral.
The Brythonic cemetery in Exeter may have been attached to the monastery attended by the young Wilfred St. Boniface (said to be a native of Crediton) in the late 7th century.
Campaigns by King Ecgberht of Wessex in Devon between 813 and 822 appear to have resulted in the defeat of the West Welsh in Cornwall but not their complete disposition.
[12] Some sources, notably the Cornish antiquary William Borlase, state that the expulsion of the Britons from Exeter was the first act in a military campaign against the West Welsh led by Æthelstan.
It seems they were then pursued westwards across the River Tamar and through Cornwall where they were defeated again close to Land's End in what may have been a “last-ditch” encounter that probably ended in slaughter,[9] thus rendering the statement made centuries earlier and known to us as The Groan of the Britons seem morbidly appropriate; "The barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea drives us to the barbarians, between these two means of death we are either killed or drowned".
Sporadic Viking incursions continued, however, until the Norman Conquest, including the disastrous defeat of the Devonians at the Battle of Pinhoe in 1001.
The city withstood an eighteen-day siege[15] and the new king was only eventually allowed to enter upon honourable terms.
The ancestors of Sir Walter Raleigh, who was born at East Budleigh, held considerable estates in the county from a similar period.
In 1320, the locals complained that all the hundreds of Devon were under the control of the great lords who did not appoint sufficient bailiffs for their proper government.
The 11th to 14th centuries were a period of economic and population growth, but the Black Death in 1348 and subsequent years caused decline in both, with resulting social change; many villages and hamlets such as 12th century Hound Tor were said to have been deserted, whilst new settlements were later granted to the rising class of tenant farmers exemplified by the surviving 14th century Dartmoor longhouse settlement at Higher Uppacott, and peasant farmers subsequently prospered with large flocks of sheep and cattle.
The Cornish quickly joined the men of Devon in the Prayer Book Rebellion and Exeter suffered a distressing siege until relieved by Lord Russell.
Plymouth Hoe is famous as the location where Drake continued to play bowls after hearing that the Spanish Armada had been sighted.
In 1688, the Prince of Orange first landed in England at Brixham (where his statue stands in the town harbour) to launch the Glorious Revolution and his journey to London to claim the English throne as William III.
South Devon was a training and assembly area during World War II for the D-Day landings, and there is a memorial to the many soldiers who were killed during a rehearsal off Slapton Sands.
[18] In the 19th and 20th centuries, Devon has experienced great changes, including the rise of the tourist industry on the so-called English Riviera, decline of farming and fishing, urbanisation, and also proliferation of holiday homes, for example in Salcombe.
The Dartmoor tin-mining industry thrived for hundreds of years, continuing from pre-Roman times right through to the first half of the 20th century.
