Royal Assent to the Bill creating the South Devon Railway was enacted on the 4th July 1844 and the railway reached Newton Abbot in late 1846. The SDR received strong backing from three other broad gauge railway companies. £400,000 of its authorised share capital of £1.1m came from the Great Western, Bristol and Exeter, and...
Since the mid eighteenth century the Ball Clay industry has, and continues to be, a major source of employment for Newton Abbot and the surrounding area. It is said that today’s industry has its origins in the sixteenth century when Sir Walter Raleigh introduced tobacco to Britain. Certainly clay from Dorset, and probably also from...
