North Tawton

North Tawton is a small market town on the River Taw in West Devon, about 7 miles from Okehampton and about 6 miles from the northern edge of Dartmoor National Park. The 2011 census gave it 2,026 residents; a 2021 figure has not turned up in the sources checked.

The Romans built a fort here, thought to be Nemetostatio, near Newland Mill on the road between Exeter and Okehampton. The Domesday survey of 1086 listed six farm holdings in the parish. St Peter's Church is first recorded in 1257, and its tower dates from that period. The town was a market by the end of the 12th century and lived on farming and wool until the last mill closed in 1930. The town hall was built in 1849 and later became a cinema.

William Budd, who worked out how cholera and typhoid spread through contaminated water, was born at Melhuishes in the town in 1811. Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath bought Court Green, an 18th century thatched former manor house, in 1961. Hughes lived there until his death in 1998, and his funeral was held at St Peter's on 3 November 1998. A blue plaque to him was unveiled on the Town Council office on 28 April 2011.