South Molton

This pleasant old market town, thankfully now bypassed by the A361 North Devon link road, has been a focus of the local agriculture-based economy since Saxon times, and in common with many such towns throughout Devon was a centre of the wool trade in the late Middle Ages. The town still flourishes as a market town with a main market day on Thursday and an extra pannier market on Saturday.

Unusually, the town has two Royal Charters, one from Elizabeth I in 1590 and another from Charles II in 1684. They are commemorated each year with an Old English Fayre held in June. The original charters can both be seen in the Town Museum along with one of the oldest fire engines in the country. It was bought by the town in 1746 for £46.

In the heart of the old town runs Broad Street, so broad as to be almost a square and distinguished by some handsome Georgian and Victorian civic architecture. Among the noteworthy buildings to be found here are the Market Hall and Assembly Rooms, the eccentric Medical Hall with its iron balcony and four Ionic columns, and the Palladian-style Guildhall of 1743, which overhangs the pavement in a series of arches. A useful Heritage Trail Guide, obtainable from the Tourist Information Centre, provides an excellent introduction to these notable buildings.

Just to the north of South Molton is Quince Honey Farm where the mysterious process of honey-making is explained in a series of displays and demonstrations. This is the world’s largest exhibition of living honey bees, their hives all safely behind glass. A viewing gallery gives an overhead view of the process of honey-making and the shop offers a full range of honey and honey products, including delicious Devonshire honey ice cream.