Bere Alston

Bere Alston is a village in West Devon on the Bere Peninsula, the neck of land between the rivers Tamar and Tavy. It forms part of the civil parish of Bere Ferrers and had 2,259 residents at the 2021 census. It is outside Dartmoor National Park, west of the moor and about 6 miles south-south-west of Tavistock, within the Tamar Valley National Landscape.

The 1870s Imperial Gazetteer describes it as a small ancient town and former borough, and says the name came from a grant by William the Conqueror to a branch of the Alencon family. It sent two members to Parliament from the reign of Elizabeth until the Reform Act of 1832. Many people worked in the nearby lead and silver mines, and market gardening later added strawberries, cherries, grapes and daffodils to the local trade.

Maynard's School was founded by Sir John Maynard in 1665 and the original building is still part of the primary school. Holy Trinity church dates from 1848 and the United Church from 1811. The Edgcumbe Hotel is the one remaining pub. Trains on the Tamar Valley Line reverse at the station, with services to Plymouth and Gunnislake. No separate dated history of the village itself, apart from the borough, has turned up in the sources checked.