Holiday Cottages 4 U
South Molton, Devon
Ideally situated as a base to explore the beautiful countryside of North Devon and Exmoor, South Molton is in one of the last remaining rural areas of Britain. There is much to do in and around the town for visitors of all ages. There is a honey farm where you can watch the bees working behind glass, a chocolate factory where you can indulge yourself and an award-winning museum. You will also find excellent scenery with some fabulous countryside in which you can walk and a growing cycle network. There are also over eighty farmhouses, guest houses, hotels and inns offering excellent value accommodation in the area - take a look at what is on offer in our accommodation section.
South Molton is a small market town on the Southern fringes of Exmoor trading sheep and cattle, wool and leather. A place of some importance in 1086 - the Domesday Book lists the unusually large number of four priests - it grew up around the now tranquil churchyard, the original Town centre. The Square was laid out a new market place early in the Middle Ages with long, narrow burgage plots running back from the street. With a shop and house street frontage, a courtyard, kitchen, garden and workshops behind, business prospered and the Town grew along the main roads, especially to the East towards the River Mole which powered several mills for processing wool and corn. As the wool trade declined in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries so South Molton's role as a transport, administrative and service centre grew. Coaching Inns and schools, Assembly Rooms and markets, doctors and auctioneers, printers and wheelwrights flourished. Since the coming of the railway and the motor car, tourism is as important as farming. The medieval, Georgian and Victorian townscape still generates an atmosphere permanence and continuing tradition in the centre of Town. Interesting byways give interesting glimpses of the past and present life of the Town, which can be explored along the Heritage Trail.
10 July 2007