Thorverton

[1] Most of the eastern boundary of the parish is formed by the River Exe and the land rises westwards to 800 feet (240 m) at the border with Cadbury.

[5] There was briefly a small settlement here during Roman times,[citation needed] perched on a hill overlooking a fording point across the River Exe (near to the current day bridge), a key crossing for the military garrisoned at Exeter (Isca Dumnoniorum).

Some of the Roundhead troops marched into Thorverton, destroyed a large stock of oats, damaged possessions of the Church and took money from the parson and Mr Tuckfield at Raddon Court.

The Roundheads moved off into Cornwall and subsequent defeat, leaving Thorverton in Royalist control with a military presence.

A line against attack from the Midlands was formed between Eggesford and Cullompton, with Thorverton the bridgehead and the headquarters of General Goring along with several thousand troops.

Fairfax and a seemingly endless line of Parliamentary infantrymen moved through Thorverton on the way to Newton St Cyres and Crediton.

The plaque was presented to the village in 2002 by a former officer of the 953rd (W.M.C Arthur of Jaffrey, New Hampshire) and dedicated to the memory of Suzanne Easterbrook, who died in that year, "and other fine people of Thorverton who were so welcoming to the young American soldiers".

Traymill, to the north of the parish on the Exe, was built about 1400 and has traceried windows, arched doorways and still retains the original hall roof.

The fairs have since ceased, but in their place the village still enjoys annual festivities during the summer with Church Week and the Country Show.

There were three butchers, one of which was located at the prominent stilted building in the centre of the village next to the green, built in 1763 in the local style of the time.

The Bury was lined with shops, now almost all converted to private homes, the broad windows of which still speak of a prosperous recent past.

The original Post Office, now a private home in the centre of the village on the corner of Bullen Street and School Lane, was run by three generations of the Cummings family from 1870 to 1994, commemorated today by a blue plaque.

There was a second ford across the stream beside Abbotsford which allowed passage to the old vicarage, which was sited between Garden Cottage and Mar Lodge.

The village green at the bottom of Jericho Street once hosted a large fir tree - planted by 10-year-old Mary Norrish of Raddon Court Barton at the time of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887.

Cobbled streets have been preserved throughout the centre of the village, as has an elaborate system of watercourses established in the 1850s; the idea of the Rector's daughter following a serious outbreak of cholera.

Thorverton's population was once much larger as the village rested near the primary means for crossing the River Exe on the main road from London towards Cornwall.

Further to this, the bridge stands on the site of an ancient fordable crossing point and accounts for the main reason the village came into existence.

The quarry at the site of the Council Car Park was used in 1811 to provide stone for the new Thorverton bridge, to be built by county surveyor, James Green.

Quarry owner, John Niner of the Barliabins estate, received payment for the stone as well as compensation for the damage done to his land.

Because of the centuries of national as well as local traffic crossing the bridge, there were once no less than five coaching inns in the village, two of which remain today.

The Exeter and the Thorverton Arms are still open today but the Bell Inn ceased trading in 2010, having planning permission granted to turn it into residential dwellings.

The Exeter Inn was built as 'The Wellington' (honouring the recent victory in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo), but was known locally as 'West's House' after the owner Mr Walter Western.

There was a substantial yeoman called Mr John Berry, who in the mid-17th century held five farms and 22 houses and cottages in the village, which he leased from the Dean and Chapter of Exeter and sub-let as an investment.

The education of children in the parish was partly supported by a small endowment from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners who were Lords of the Manor.

[8] There are slate floor slabs to the Tuckfields of East Raddon,[7] a hamlet one mile west of the village, where the abandoned workings of a stone quarry are still visible.

Just opposite the ford, six dwellings and their outhouses were consumed in 1770, but an insurance policy with the Sun Fire Office allowed a new settlement to be built.

William Cummings (postmaster named on the blue plaque) acted quickly to summon an engine from Exeter.

The labourers and artisans that inhabited the houses threw their furniture into the street in desperation, but uninsured they faced destitution.

The plentiful supply of water allowed the fire to be extinguished before it reached the stack of timber stored at the Waggon Works.

Recent excavation work on the garden of the modern Bell Inn revealed a layer of charred earth from the fire.