4 of the Best Historic Market Towns to Visit in South Devon and the South Hams
- Martin Hesp
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
South Devon’s South Hams district and its Dartmoor fringes occupy some of the most enviable geography in Britain. Tucked between the untamed, granite heights of the high moor and a dramatic, ria-indented coastline, this landscape of rich red earth and lush valleys has bred prosperity for centuries.
Rather than standard commuter dormitories or sleepy seaside halts, its inland settlements are working market hubs steeped in maritime trading, Saxon origins, and fierce civic independence. Here are four historic towns well worth stepping off the highway to explore.
1. Totnes: Merchant Grandeur and Free-Thinking Flair
Totnes is as fine a place as any to understand the enduring power of a Devon market town. Once one of the wealthiest mercantile boroughs in England, trading has animated its steep main street for so long that history seems to cling to the stones like a river mist rising off the Dart.
Climbing away from the river through the arch of the historic East Gate, Fore Street and the High Street form an architectural showcase of Elizabethan and Tudor prosperity. When merchants traded cloth and moorland tin across the seas, they erected fine timber-framed and slate-hung properties atop ancient Saxon burgage plots—narrow strips of land that run deep behind the street frontages, connected by narrow, cobbled alleys. High above the town sits the circular shell keep of Totnes Castle, planted by the Normans on a steep knoll guarding the lowest bridging point on the River Dart.
While celebrated in recent decades as the capital of the alternative, free-thinking Westcountry, Totnes’s radical streak is nothing new. Long before modern organic bakers and artisan cheesemakers lined the Friday and Saturday markets beneath the colonnaded Butterwalk, nineteenth-century pioneers were attempting to establish medicinal spas at the ancient Leechwells. Later, the progressive Dartington estate nearby attracted artists, philosophers, and visionaries from around the globe. Today, the town marries that creative, independent spirit with a deep architectural heritage.
Totnes Fact File
Market Days: Friday and Saturday (Civil Hall square and the High Street, featuring local food, crafts, and vintage goods).
Key Landmarks: Totnes Castle (English Heritage), the Tudor East Gate Arch, St Mary’s red sandstone church, and the Elizabethan House Museum.
Famous Son: Charles Babbage (born 1791), the mathematical polymath who conceived the first automatic digital computer (the Analytical Engine), went to school in the town, where his grandfather served as mayor.
Curiosity: The historic bridge crossing the Dart at Totnes has marked the river's lowest road crossing for nearly a millennium. The earliest recorded bridge was built here in 1210; at just five feet wide, it was once notorious as one of the most hair-raising crossings in Devon.
2. Kingsbridge: The Bustling Capital of the South Hams
Kingsbridge sounds appealing before you arrive, but the reality easily exceeds expectations. Clinging to the rolling hillsides at the northern head of the Salcombe Estuary—strictly a ria, or flooded river valley—it manages the rare trick of being both a working agricultural market centre and a lively coastal haven. On a bright day, Atlantic light reflects off the incoming tide, bouncing directly up the hill into ancient Fore Street.
Writing in 1861, author Francis Young declared that "a prettier, more prosperous, more pleasant spot shall not exist in the earth-encircling realms of Her Majesty", praising its extraordinary array of independent tradesmen. That self-sufficient character remains intact. Fore Street climbs steeply from the water, flanked by independent butchers, fishmongers, ironmongers, and quirky shops rather than homogeneous retail chains.
Down on the quay, little egrets stalk the tidal mudflats just yards from the open-air market stalls. While today the water hosts pleasure craft and small tenders, Kingsbridge was once a prolific shipbuilding hub. In the mid-nineteenth century, local yards launched topsail schooners, barques, and brigantines—many built specifically for the high-speed, perilous fruit trade rushing citrus from the Mediterranean and Azores.
At the top of the town stands the Cookworthy Museum, housed in an atmospheric 1670 grammar school where generations of South Hams schoolboys carved their names into dark oak wainscoting.
Kingsbridge Fact File
Market Days: Tuesday and Thursday (open-air market on the Quay).
Key Landmarks: The Cookworthy Museum, the bulbous four-sided Town Hall clock tower, and the ancient Shambles arcade.
Famous Son: William Cookworthy (born in Kingsbridge in 1705), the Quaker apothecary who discovered china clay (kaolin) in Cornwall, transforming the British porcelain and ceramics industries.
Curiosity: Look closely at the Town Hall clock tower (now housing the cinema). While the tower has four sides, it famously boasts only three faces—the north dial overlooking the old workhouse was deliberately left blank so the inmates inside could not watch the passing hours.
3. Modbury: The Sitting-Pretty Borough with a Fiery Past
Approaching Modbury from the west along the A379, you climb out of the Erme valley until the church spire catches your eye, before dropping suddenly into a tidy, compact settlement tucked neatly into a green hollow. With its slate-fronted cottages, steep lanes, and welcoming hostelries, it looks for all the world like a pastoral sanctuary that has slumbered undisturbed for centuries.
The placid exterior is deceptive. Modbury was granted its market charter in the thirteenth century and has witnessed extraordinary upheaval. For nearly 500 years, the parish was dominated by the powerful Champernowne family—a colorful dynasty whose members included Katherine Champernowne, mother to both Sir Humphrey Gilbert (founder of Newfoundland) and Sir Walter Raleigh.
During the English Civil War, Modbury became a bloody flashpoint. In February 1643, a force of 8,000 Parliamentarian troops clashed with 2,000 Royalists defending the town. Fierce hand-to-hand combat erupted through the streets, with the garrison making a desperate last stand in the fortified Court House before retreating under cover of darkness down what is still known as Runaway Lane.
At the crest of the town stands St George’s Church, a grand building often described as a miniature cathedral. The spire features a curious architectural kink—the result of construction suddenly grinding to a halt when the Black Death decimated the local stonemasons, leaving later generations to complete the works without the original designs. Down in the main street, traditional shopfronts like the legendary Pickles hardware store maintain a thriving rural community spirit.
Modbury Fact File
Historic Fair: The eight-day Modbury May Fair, inaugurated by royal charter in 1329, opened with the traditional Ceremony of the Glove.
Key Landmarks: St George’s Church, the historic merchant houses of Brownston Street, and the old coaching inns along Broad Street.
Curiosity: Modbury was once celebrated across the Westcountry for its potent "Nappy Beer", an ale so formidable that even Henry III’s court jester penned an unprintable ballad in its honour.
4. Ivybridge: The Town Ruled by Rapids
Most South Devon settlements look south to the water, but Ivybridge is bound inextricably to Dartmoor. The entire settlement is defined by the tumbling, crashing waters of the River Erme, which races straight off the southern granite bogs into a wooded ravine right through the middle of the town.
The river gives the town both its name and its historic reason for being. An ancient, hump-backed packhorse bridge—widened in the eighteenth century to carry stagecoaches along the old Eastern Plymouth Turnpike—still spans the white water where the boundaries of four ancient parishes meet.
The rushing torrent provided limitless free water power, spawning a thriving industrial legacy of mills and leats. The most famous of these, Stowford Paper Mill, was founded in 1787 and processed specialty papers beneath an imposing brick chimney that looms dramatically against the valley side.
Today, the river banks are threaded with landscaped walks and viewing platforms. Look north from anywhere along the river, and the wild contours of the high moor rise above Brunel’s towering railway viaduct. Within minutes, a walker can leave the bustling Saturday farmers' market, head through Longtimber Woods, and emerge onto the open expanse of Western Beacon and the southern moorland wilderness.
Ivybridge Fact File
Market Days: The popular Ivybridge Farmers' Market is held along the riverbank on the 1st and 3rd Saturday of every month.
Key Landmarks: The historic Ivy Bridge, the Erme river walks, Stowford Mill, and Brunel's railway viaduct.
Literary Connection: Sherlock Holmes scholars point to Ivybridge as the rail station where Dr Watson first disembarked before his fateful drive up onto Dartmoor in The Hound of the Baskervilles. Watson’s description of ascending steep, mossy lanes alongside a foaming granite torrent perfectly mirrors the climb out of Ivybridge onto the moor.
Curiosity: The artist J.M.W. Turner painted the picturesque falls beneath the Ivy Bridge, while the Duke of Wellington once famously walked through the town alongside a local farmer and two navvies when his coaching horses failed to appear on time.
