Video Discription |
Join us for a wet and windy walk around Newton Abbot, Devon, UK. In this walk we explore Newton Abbot town centre. Our walk starts on Queen Street, we walk down to Courtenay Street and Wolborough Street passing Austins Department Store and St Leonards Clock Tower. We then retrace our steps and take a look around Market Walk Shopping Centre. Our walk finishes on Albany Street.
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Here is a selection of some of our other walks you may enjoy:
Torquay: https://youtu.be/u807uIwxg_A
Paignton: https://youtu.be/JEY3iWPtStI
Brixham: https://youtu.be/4vQr8pN3rYw
Teignmouth: https://youtu.be/f9i_QExXnuM
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Newton Abbot is a market town and civil parish on the River Teign in the Teignbridge District of Devon, England, with a population of 25,556. It grew rapidly in the Victorian era as the home of the South Devon Railway locomotive works. This later became a major steam engine shed, retained to service British Railways diesel locomotives until 1981. It now houses the Brunel industrial estate. The town has a race course nearby, the most westerly in England, and a country park, Decoy.
There has been a thriving market in Newton Abbot for over 750 years.
Newton Abbot railway station stands at the east end of Queen Street. It provides both local and long-distance train services.
The South Devon railway reached Newton Abbot in 1846, and changed it from simply a market town with associated trades (leather and wool) into an industrial base. The South Devon Railway Company opened the station on 30 December 1846. A branch to Torquay was added on 18 December 1848. Isambard Kingdom Brunel used the Teignmouth/Newton Abbot section to experiment with his atmospheric railway. The experiment failed, but the remains of Brunel's pumping house survive at Starcross and the old Dairy Crest milk processing factory in Totnes.
In medieval times Devon was an important sheep-rearing county. Many towns had their own wool and cloth industries and Newton Abbot had woollen mills, fullers, dyers, spinners, weavers and tailors. In particular, fellmongering (where wool is removed from the sheepskin) was well established in the town. The annual cloth fair was the town's busiest fair.
Associated with the woollen industry was the leather business. Hides left after the fellmongering process were made into leather. Tanners, boot and shoemakers, glovers and saddlers were all in business in Newton Abbot. As with the wool industry, business flourished over 600 years until after the Second World War.
St Leonard's Tower, Newton Abbot, popularly known as The Clock Tower, is a Grade II listed building in Newton Abbot. It was constructed in the 15th-century as part of a Gothic style church and was the site of William III's first proclamation in England (although he had not yet become king). The church was demolished in 1836 to improve traffic flows but the tower was saved by a local petition. St Leonard's Tower is approximately 60 feet in height and built of Plymouth stone. A church had sat on this site, in the centre of Newton Abbot and the meeting point of its three main streets, since 1220 and is mentioned in a surviving document of 1350. Today the tower is owned by the Newton Abbot Town Council and looked after by the Newton Abbot Museum who open it to the public for free on selected days between May and September. The tower, known locally as "The Clock Tower", has been described as the most conspicuous building on Wolborough Street and the town's best known landmark. The tower also appears on the flag of Newton Abbot, adopted in 2009.
The Flag of Newton Abbot was adopted in 2009 by the town council. It depicts a stylised image of St. Leonard's Tower defacing a modified flag of Devon. Henry Cole, of Newton Abbot Town Council, stated that the "green represents the moors, black for the granite and white for the clay" of the surrounding area. The cross of St Petroc is also used to represent a major crossroads in the town which converged on the clock tower. The arm of the cross represent the routes to Exeter and London, Bovey Tracey and the moors, Totnes and Plymouth, and Torquay and Brixham.
Newton Abbot Racecourse is a thoroughbred horse racing venue located just north of Newton Abbot, Devon, England. The course was first established in 1866 when the 91-acre site was purchased. The main grandstand was built in 1969 and opened by the Queen Mother, while the corporate facilities were opened in 1990. In 2016 the racecourse celebrated its 150th anniversary.
Tucked into a corner of the racecourse, Newton Abbot's stock-car track flourished for nearly 30 years and attracted fans and drivers from all over the South of England.
Newton Abbot Museum displays the history of Newton Abbot and of the Great Western Railway. [ulFygsDGKD8] |