Spreyton

Spreyton is a village and parish in West Devon, just north of Dartmoor, with views across to Yes Tor and High Willhays. The post town is Crediton. It is in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Espreitona, an English name meaning a settlement in brushwood, and the earliest named residents appear in the tax records of 1332. The Talbots held the manor from before 1166 to about the 1500s. In 1851 the parish had about 384 people and 16 farms, and in 2011 it had 380. Electricity arrived in 1955.

St Michael's church was rebuilt in 1451 by the vicar Henry le Mayne with money from Robert of Rouen, Prior of Cowick, and Richard Talbot, lord of Spreyton. A Latin inscription in the chancel roof says so. The oak roof bosses include three hares sharing ears, a green man and sacred monograms.

Spreyton is linked to Tom Cobley of the folk song Widecombe Fair. The parish history describes him as a wealthy bachelor who died in 1794, and his grave is by the church. The Tom Cobley Tavern, a 16th century pub called the White Hart until the 1950s, says the song's journey began there in 1802. The dates do not sit easily together, and the link rests on local research and the pub's own account. The pub was CAMRA's National Pub of the Year in 2006.