[2] Romans crossed the River Taw at what is now Newland Mill, a little outside the present town, and established a succession of military camps there over the years.
The Roman fort is believed to have had the name Nemetostatio, meaning "The road-station of the sacred groves", and may have been located on the site of an ancient druidic sanctuary.
North Tawton railway station (now closed) lies a mile or two outside the town on the line from Exeter to Okehampton which continued on to Plymouth and Cornwall.
Bathe Pool, a grassy hollow near North Tawton, is said to fill with water at times of national crisis.
The poet Ted Hughes (1930–1998) bought a house, Court Green, in North Tawton, in 1961 with his then-wife Sylvia Plath (1932–1963), who lived there briefly with him until their separation in December 1962.
In due course Hughes made North Tawton his permanent home, until his fatal myocardial infarction in a Southwark, London, hospital on 28 October 1998, while undergoing treatment for colon cancer.
[9] The nearby Den Brook Wind Farm and the residents local to it were featured in a four-part BBC documentary called Windfarm Wars.
Alison Baker, David Hoare & Jean Shields, The Book of North Tawton: Celebrating An Ancient Market Town (Halsgrove, 2002, ISBN 1-84114-156-9)