Barnstaple guidebook

Barnstaple is the area's regional centre, offering plenty of shopping, recreational and employment opportunities.

As well as being a thriving town centre, it provides easy access to all the natural beauty and attractions that North Devon has to offer, including large sandy beaches, dramatic moorland landscapes and quiet country lanes weaving between hills and fields.

Barnstaple has a strong sense of history and lays claim to being the country’s oldest borough.

It was founded at the lowest crossing point of the River Taw, about three miles from the Taw's seafall at the Bristol Channel. By the time of the Domesday Book it had its own mint and in the Middle Ages it became a wealthy wool trading town.

It has a prized and very popular pannier market — a tradition that goes back to Saxon times — alongside the famous Butchers' Row, a line of small food shops including butchers, fishmongers and delicatessens.

Barnstaple has direct and easy access to the M5 motorway along the A361 North Devon Link Road and also has a bus station and railway.

The town already has a wealth of services, including schools, churches, a museum, theatre, library, leisure centre, sports grounds and hospital.

But major plans are underway to further develop the town to provide more housing, shopping and leisure facilities including a new state-of-the-art college.