Chudleigh

Chudleigh is a town in Teignbridge, Devon, in the Teign valley between Newton Abbot and Exeter. It is close to the edge of Dartmoor but outside the National Park. The A38 has bypassed it since 1972. The 2021 census gave 5,919 people for the Chudleigh ward, which includes Chudleigh Knighton.

It has Saxon origins and grew in the Middle Ages as a wool town. The parish church of St Martin and St Mary was consecrated in 1259, and a charter of 1309 gave the town an annual fair. On 22 May 1807 a fire that began in a bakery in Culver Street destroyed about 180 of the 300 houses. The Chudleigh Rebuilding Act followed in 1808, and the town was rebuilt in Georgian style. The Italianate Town Hall dates from 1865. The woollen trade had gone by the 1870s, according to the Imperial Gazetteer.

Ugbrooke House has belonged to the Clifford family since 1604, and the Barons Clifford take their title from Chudleigh. Chudleigh Rock is a limestone outcrop with a cavern, and an Iron Age hillfort overlooks the town. The Chudleigh Carnival has run in its present form since 1973 and takes place in the second week of July. The origin of the name is uncertain, though it may mean Ciedda's wood or clearing.