Tiverton, Devon
Template:GBthumb Tiverton is a town in the County of Devon, in England. It is the administrative centre for the Mid Devon district.
Its name is derived from 'the town on two fords' or 'Twy-ford-ton' - 'Twyverton'. The town stands at the confluence of the rivers Exe and Lowman. Human occupation in the area dates back to the Stone-Age, with many flint tools found in the area. An Iron Age hillfort, Cranmore Castle stands on a hill above the town, and a Roman fort was discovered on the hillside below Knightshayes Court near Bolham, just to the north of the town. Blundell's School an independent school, was founded in Tiverton in 1604, and relocated to its present location on the outskirts of town in 1882.
Tiverton owes its early growth and prosperity to the wool trade, which caused the town to grow in the 16th and 17th Centuries. By the turn of the 18th Century the trade was peaking, and a century of turmoil followed during the early Industrial Revolution with many riots by the town's societies of Woolcombers and Weavers. By the end of the century, due to imports and the expansion of industrialization elsewhere, the town's woollen industry was in terminal decline.
In 1815 the industrialist John Heathcoat bought an old woollen mill on the river Exe and shortly afterwards moved his lace manufactory to the town, following the destruction of his machinery in Loughborough by former Luddites in the pay of the lacemakers of Nottingham. The factory turned the fortunes of Tiverton around once again, and it became an early industrial centre in the South West. It gained a reputation as one of the 'rotten boroughs' targeted by those seeking electoral reform. Although small, it had two MPs representing it. Lord Palmerston, or 'Pam' as he was known locally, was one of these MPs for a large part of the 19th century. In 1848 the Chartists, a radical group seeking to change the electoral system, stood one of their leaders, George Julian Harney, against Palmerston. He is widely reported as having gained no votes - but in fact he won the 'popular vote' (A show of hands of the people of the town), and withdrew when Palmerston called a ballot because he knew that he would lose in a vote consisting only of the wealthy and propertied in the town (Only 400 out of a population of 7000 were entitled to vote at that time, which is one of the things the Chartists sought to change). After the Reform Act of 1867, Tiverton had just the one MP, generally one of the Heathcoat-Amory family.
The town was the last in the Devon & Cornwall area to retain an independent police force, until 1945. In the second half of the 20th century Tiverton once again declined in prosperity, as the Heathcoat factory became ever more mechanised, and the Starkey Knight & Ford Brewery was taken over by Whitbread as its regional brewery, but later closed, becoming just a bottling plant, and then lying derelict for some years before being demolished to make way for a supermarket. The manufacturing industry on Lowman Island in the town died a lingering death, and the Globe Elastics plant in the town also closed down. During the 1990s the town underwent something of a revival and has now become a relatively thriving dormitory town.
Recent expansion (2005)
Tiverton's revival began with the construction of the A361 - or 'North Devon Link Road' in the late 1980's. In the 1990's a new industrial estate was built at Little Gornhay on the north eastern edge of the town, and a new junction was added to the link road, with a distributor road into the town which has fast become its main gateway. A road linking this road to the Exeter Road along the line of the old Railway; Western Way, was also constructed. These two roads opened up a new aspect to the town, and paved the way for expansion.
The demand for housing in the UK and particularly in the South-West has driven house prices up and many now look to towns on the periphery of employment centres. Tiverton has become a popular 'dormitory' town for commuters to nearby Exeter and Taunton and this growth has been supported by large housing projects to the North of the town by most national house builders including Westbury Homes, Barrett Homes and Bellway Homes. The resulting influx of population has led to further development of the town's services and shops. The town now has a newly built PFI (Private Finance Initiative) Hospital, which has left the old hospital derelict in the town centre. It has also replaced its out-of-date swimming pool with a new 'Leisure Centre' (swimming pool and small gymnasium). It also has the main campus for the East Devon College - the largest local Further Education college. Additionally Mid Devon District Council has recently built new offices at 'Phoenix House' at the foot of Phoenix Lane, close to the site of the old Brewery. The building incorporates a new public Library.
More recently supermarket giant Tesco has opened a new store situated on the site of the old Lowman Works, at the edge of the town centre, vacating their former premises on Fore Street, in 2006 the national catalogue chain store Argos occupied the former Tesco "high street" site. In late 2006, the main Somerfield store closed its doors for the final time. Work is currently underway to refit the building's interior and it is expected to open as a Marks & Spencer Simply Food store in 2007. This continued growth is changing the town, though it remains to be seen if all of these changes will be for the good of the town in the long term.
Education
Railways
Tiverton had two railway stations on a branch line, but the line was closed under Beeching. Later, a parkway station was opened on the main line from Exeter to London at Tiverton Parkway which remains the only train station to serve the town, despite being located 7 miles east of the town alongside the M5 motorway.