Walkhampton

Walkhampton is a village and civil parish on the western side of Dartmoor, about 4 miles south-east of Tavistock. The 2021 census recorded 785 residents. It is grouped with Meavy and Sheepstor under Burrator Parish Council. The church parish also takes in part of Dousland, Welltown and the moor as far as Princetown.

The grade I listed church stands on high ground about half a mile above the village, and one local guide says it was there before the village, which explains its position. It is 14th century with 15th century additions and a tower with four pinnacles. It faces north-east rather than east, and for about 400 years it had no recorded dedication, until it became St Mary the Virgin in 1985. Church House, near the church, dates from the early 16th century. A plaque gives 1698, probably when a second floor was added. It was a parish ale house, a tithe collection point and a council chamber on the route between Buckfast and Tavistock abbeys. The Walkhampton Inn is 17th century.

Lady Modiford's School was founded in 1719, when Lady Modiford gave a cottage as a schoolhouse for 20 poor boys. By 1785 there were 30 boys and a schoolmistress teaching 10 girls, and the school's own history dates the present building and bell tower to 1895.

Walkhampton Common has Bronze Age stone rows, cairns, hut circles and reaves, and medieval tin working. The Devonport Leat, built in the 1790s to carry water to Plymouth Dock, now ends at Burrator Reservoir, though the sources do not say whether it crosses the parish.