Tavistock

Tavistock is a town in the West Devon council district in the county of Devon, southwest England.

The town is within The Cornwall and West Devon mining Landscape World Heritage Site which was https://gazetteer.org.uk/results?type=em&place=tavistock&loc=setrecognized by UNESCO on 13th July 2006. It is part of the Tamar Valley Mining District with Tavistock area of the World Heritage Site.

The town is regard by many as the ‘eastern gateway’ to the World Heritage Site and an excellent starting point from which to explore the rich mining landscape of Cornwall and west Devon.

The small market town of Tavistock was transformed during the nineteenth century following the discovery of rich mineral deposits of copper and other metals nearby. The population of the town nearly doubled in the forty years after 1821.

The Dukes of Bedford extensively remodelled the medieval town with the profits which they accrued from mines on their land near the town.

The town was a Stannary Town, which was an administrative centre for the collection of the duty payable on the tin smelted from the ore produced by the region’s mines.