Launceston

Launceston is a market town in east Cornwall, about a mile west of the River Tamar, which forms the border with Devon. It lies outside Dartmoor National Park and is a starting point for the Two Castles Trail to Okehampton. The 2021 census gave the civil parish 10,247 residents and the built-up area 8,425.

Launceston Castle is a Norman motte and bailey built by Robert, Count of Mortain, half-brother of William the Conqueror. Cornwall Forever dates it to 1067 and Wikipedia to about 1070. Richard, Earl of Cornwall, rebuilt it in stone in the 1200s, and it served as a prison and courthouse into the 1800s. In 1548, 28 Cornish people were brought here to be executed over the death of William Body, which gave the castle the name Castle Terrible. Royalists used it as a base in the Civil War. Launceston lost its status as county town to Bodmin in 1838.

St Mary Magdalene's Church was built between 1511 and 1524. The South Gate, a 14th century gatehouse, once controlled entry through the town wall. Lawrence House, built in 1753, belongs to the National Trust and is leased to the Town Council as the town museum. John Betjeman described its street as having "the most perfect collection of 18th Century townhouses in Cornwall".