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Bovey Tracey
Bovey Tracey (/ˌbʌvi ˈtreɪsi/) is a town and civil parish in Devon, England. It is located on the edge of Dartmoor, which gives rise to the slogan used on the town's boundary signs: The Gateway to the Moor. It is often known locally as Bovey. About 10 miles (16 km) south-west of Exeter, it lies on the A382 road, about halfway between Newton Abbot and Moretonhampstead. The village is at the centre of the electoral ward of Bovey. At the 2021 census, it had a population of 7,996, which was an increase on the 7,168 recorded in the 2011 census.
Bovey Tracey was an established Saxon community and takes its name from the River Bovey. The name first appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Bovi and possibly earlier as Buui. The town gained its second name from the de Tracey family, who were lords of the manor after the Norman Conquest of 1066, and was first documented as Bovitracy in 1309.
One member of the family, William de Tracy, was implicated in the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. It is thought that he rebuilt the parish church of St Peter, St Paul and St Thomas of Canterbury as penance for the murder. In the early 13th century, Henry de Tracey created a borough here and, in 1259, was granted the right to hold a weekly market and an annual three-day fair.
During the English Civil War, on 9 January 1646, Oliver Cromwell and a contingent of his Roundhead army entered Bovey Tracey after dark and caught part of Lord Wentworth's Regiment by surprise, catching a number of officers playing cards in an inn. Many of Wentworth's Royalist troops escaped, but Cromwell did capture about 400 horses. If local legend is to be believed, the Royalists escaped by throwing coins from the windows in order to distract the poorly paid Roundhead troops. The next day a battle was fought on nearby Bovey Heath ending in victory for Cromwell's army.
The name of Cromwell lives on in the town today in both the public house, The Cromwell Arms, and the remains of a nearby stone arch, known locally (and incorrectly) as Cromwell's Arch. The arch is claimed to be what is left of a priory that stood previously on the site of the nearby Baptist Church. It has been shown through many historical documents that this is a local myth perpetuated by local historians, and that there is no evidence that a priory once stood in the centre of Bovey Tracey.
The Bovey Tracey Potteries operated from the 1750s for about 200 years.
Bovey Tracey was twinned with Le Molay-Littry in Normandy, France; however, in February 2018, local councillors discovered surprisingly that the French town had unexpectedly twinned with another location, Theydon Bois in Essex.
Bovey Tracey lies in the valley of the River Bovey at the junction of the A382 road (between Newton Abbot and Moretonhampstead) and the B3387 road (Chudleigh Knighton to Haytor Vale).
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Bovey Tracey
Bovey Tracey (/ˌbʌvi ˈtreɪsi/) is a town and civil parish in Devon, England. It is located on the edge of Dartmoor, which gives rise to the slogan used on the town's boundary signs: The Gateway to the Moor. It is often known locally as Bovey. About 10 miles (16 km) south-west of Exeter, it lies on the A382 road, about halfway between Newton Abbot and Moretonhampstead. The village is at the centre of the electoral ward of Bovey. At the 2021 census, it had a population of 7,996, which was an increase on the 7,168 recorded in the 2011 census.
Bovey Tracey was an established Saxon community and takes its name from the River Bovey. The name first appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Bovi and possibly earlier as Buui. The town gained its second name from the de Tracey family, who were lords of the manor after the Norman Conquest of 1066, and was first documented as Bovitracy in 1309.
One member of the family, William de Tracy, was implicated in the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. It is thought that he rebuilt the parish church of St Peter, St Paul and St Thomas of Canterbury as penance for the murder. In the early 13th century, Henry de Tracey created a borough here and, in 1259, was granted the right to hold a weekly market and an annual three-day fair.
During the English Civil War, on 9 January 1646, Oliver Cromwell and a contingent of his Roundhead army entered Bovey Tracey after dark and caught part of Lord Wentworth's Regiment by surprise, catching a number of officers playing cards in an inn. Many of Wentworth's Royalist troops escaped, but Cromwell did capture about 400 horses. If local legend is to be believed, the Royalists escaped by throwing coins from the windows in order to distract the poorly paid Roundhead troops. The next day a battle was fought on nearby Bovey Heath ending in victory for Cromwell's army.
The name of Cromwell lives on in the town today in both the public house, The Cromwell Arms, and the remains of a nearby stone arch, known locally (and incorrectly) as Cromwell's Arch. The arch is claimed to be what is left of a priory that stood previously on the site of the nearby Baptist Church. It has been shown through many historical documents that this is a local myth perpetuated by local historians, and that there is no evidence that a priory once stood in the centre of Bovey Tracey.
The Bovey Tracey Potteries operated from the 1750s for about 200 years.
Bovey Tracey was twinned with Le Molay-Littry in Normandy, France; however, in February 2018, local councillors discovered surprisingly that the French town had unexpectedly twinned with another location, Theydon Bois in Essex.
Bovey Tracey lies in the valley of the River Bovey at the junction of the A382 road (between Newton Abbot and Moretonhampstead) and the B3387 road (Chudleigh Knighton to Haytor Vale).