The first mention of Torrington is found in the Domesday Book but evidence has been discovered of settlement in the locality long before that date.  Flint tools from the Neolithic age have been excavated at Weare Giffard and Bronze Age artefacts and human remains have been found in ancient burial mounds (tumuli) near Torrington.  Stones of the Saxon period were found on the site of the old castle when the foundations of the new bowling club pavilion were being prepared in 1987.

William the Conqueror reached Devon early in 1068 and occupied the whole county within a year.  He distributed the large estates forfeited by existing landowners among his Norman followers, reserving some for his own use.  Odo was the Domesday holder of Great Torrington and may be regarded as the first baron of Torrington.  His descendants and heirs took the surname ‘De Toriton’.

The 12th and 13th centuries were the great age of colonisation which took the form of the spread of settlement and the cultivation of the countryside.  The other aspect of the colonisation movement was the creation of ‘boroughs’ by lords of rural manors.  All of them had a weekly market, many of them an annual fair.  Torrington became a borough in the 12th century and by the 13th century was known as ‘Chepyng (market) Toriton’.

Torrington was in and out of the hands of a succession of barons who were related to, or in favour with, the current king and then fell out of favour.  When Richard III was killed at Bosworth in 1485, Henry VII took possession of the baronies of Barnstaple and Torrington but two years later handed them over to his mother, Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby.  Her grandson, Henry VIII, inherited much of her property including Torrington but in about 1525 he granted it, with other North Devon properties, to his illegitimate son, Henry Fitz Roy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset.  Fitz Roy died suddenly in 1536 and Henry VIII then granted Torrington to his childhood friend, William Fitz William.  

In about 1554 the manor of Torrington was bestowed by Queen Mary on James Basset, a member of her Privy Council.  He was a son of Sir John Basset of Umberleigh and his wife, Honora, was daughter of Thomas Grenville of Bideford.  It may have been through James Basset’s influence that a charter of incorporation was conferred on Torrington in 1554.  James Basset’s son, Philip, sold the manor of Torrington to Sir John Fortescue (c1531-1607) who left it to his younger son, William, from whom it was purchased by the Rolle family.

George Rolle (c1485-1552), who had acquired the property of Stevenstone in the adjoining parish of St Giles-in-the-Wood during Henry VIII’s time, was the founder of the Rolle dynasty which lasted for more than 350 years until the death of Mark Rolle in 1907.

All the main streets of Torrington are mentioned in early deeds, such as Calf (Calve Strete) 1283 and Cornmarket (Cornstrete) 1345.  Even New Street (Nywystret) appears in a document dated 1382.

In the 17th century most of the population lived close to the town centre.  The Hearth Tax of 1674 lists only 316 houses.  Given the size of the population at the time, this would have meant an average of seven people per house so the built-up area of the town was densely populated.

Torrington commanded an important crossing of the River Torridge by way of the South Bridge (Taddiport) and Rothern Bridge, and served as a market centre for the surrounding area.  

There were four distinct old main roads running almost due north, south, east and west from the town: School Lane to the north was the old road to Bideford, via Weare Giffard, Gammaton and East-the-Water, and also to Barnstaple.  The road was named after the school set up by John Lovering in 1671 in Weare Giffard.  The really ancient road to Barnstaple – ‘Barum’ – was by another old pack-way from Calf Street, down what is now Gas Lane to Brent Bridge and on by Coombe Cross.  Taddiport Bridge to the south took the old road to Plymouth which climbed a steep hill to Little Torrington.  To the east the old road to Exeter went from Well Street by way of Caddywell and Shallowford and back up to North Healand.  The old road down over the commons at the western end of town crossed the Torridge at Rothern Bridge and went up to Frithelstock and on to Hartland and Stratton (which facilitated communications between monastic establishments).

Street and place names in Torrington reflect the activities that took place there in the past.  Limers Road was an old pack road along which lime, coal and other supplies were transported from Weare Giffard where they had been unloaded from barges (before being replaced by the Rolle Canal in 1827).  Mill Street led down to the ancient Manor Corn Mill which was later rebuilt further upstream by Lord Rolle.  Rack Park is where woollen cloth was hung out to dry on racks.  Castle Street marks the approach from the town to the site of the medieval castle and Barley Grove refers to the bailey of the castle.

A new turnpike road to Bideford was constructed on the west bank of the Torridge via Landcross in 1825.  The old road from Rothern Bridge to Torrington was up Carriage Path on the commons.  When Torrington railway station was built in 1872 the road was altered, and again in 1928 when the new Rolle Bridge was built.  New Bridge by the New Manor Mill/Orford Mill was built in 1843 at the instigation of Lord Rolle, and a new road was cut from there up Mile Hill to Little Torrington, Merton and Hatherleigh which opened in 1844.

The castle was on the south side of the town near the edge of the high, steep precipice overlooking the River Torridge, now called Castle Hill.  Its commanding position, with strong natural defences to the south and far-reaching views of the surrounding countryside, can still be appreciated.  

In the Middle Ages it was an important site occupied for about four centuries.  As the heavily fortified property of the lords of Torrington it was the most imposing secular residence in the locality, as well as being the administrative centre of numerous rural estates.       

Castle Street leads to the old castle site where there is now a bowling green, car park and the castle mound which is all that remains of the old fortification.

The original castle was built in the 12th century and the site is first mentioned in 1139 when it was attacked in the civil war waged in the reign of King Stephen (1135-54).  Henry de Tracy, a supporter of King Stephen, took the castle from its lord, William de Toriton, but William’s family later regained control and kept the castle until 1227.  It seems the first castle was built without royal licence and in 1228 the Sheriff of Devon ordered it to be pulled down and the ditches around it to be filled up level with the ground.  A second castle was built, with permission, by Richard de Merton in 1338 on the same site.

The castle of 1139 had a tower which was possibly situated on the earthwork to the west of the bowling green.  There is later reference to a bailey and the site may have been of the well-known motte (mound) and bailey (courtyard) pattern.  (The name of the Barley Grove car park could well be a corruption of ‘bailey’).  Despite the extensive destruction of the site in 1228, this mainly affected its defences for the chambers, hall, kitchen, grange and cowshed were mentioned in 1343 and the chapel still survived in the 16th century having been used as a school house since 1485.  This was eventually demolished in 1780.  Another school house was built on the same site which, in later years, became the Blue Coat School, then the Eric Palmer Community Centre.  This closed in 2010 and the building is now a health and fitness centre.

The east end of the castle site, said to be the location of the castle keep, is now occupied by the bowling green.  The castellated walls together with the arrow slits seen here were, however, constructed by Lord Rolle in around 1846 and he built Town Mills (by New Bridge on the A386) in the same flamboyant style.  When the old bowling pavilion was pulled down in 1987 to make way for a new clubhouse, an archaeological study was made and the masonry foundations of part of a domestic building were discovered, the tail of a rampart of clay and stone was located and considerable quantities of medieval pottery were recovered.  

The Care Forum is a networking forum for those working in health, welfare, education, caring and religious areas in Torrington and twenty-three surrounding parishes.  The Forum has been in existence for over thirty years and group membership has often been over thirty.

Keith Hughes, who was the Devon County Council’s Community Education Tutor at the Eric Palmer Community Centre responsible for Youth, Adult and Community development, perceived a need to develop greater communications within the town and its neighbouring parishes, especially in the area of local care groups and organisations.  His views were shared by Methodist minister John Bradley who helped Keith set up the Forum in February 1986 when fifteen people took part in its first meeting.

The proposal was to bring together representatives from the various organisations, either from within the town and district or serving the town but based elsewhere.  The representatives might be full or part-time professionals, full or part-time voluntary workers.  They would meet over lunch where one-to-one contacts and introductions could be made.  There followed an hour’s informal yet structured meeting, with members sitting in a circle – no hierarchy here!  The idea was that members should come either with specific needs or ideas they wished to share with others, or to listen and learn of other agencies’ work or issues.

The Forum still meets on the second Wednesday of every month, but now at the community hospital, and a snack lunch is provided.  Apart from paying a small membership subscription each year, the general monthly meetings manage themselves without the need for a committee, although the Forum does have officers.  Members come, representing their group, organisation or area of work, and both give and receive information.  Ideas are floated, areas of general concern to all in the community are voiced, as well as individual requests for help, advice, or suggestions to run a project jointly, and are all thrown into the general and open discussion.  Time is allowed after the meeting for one-to-one contacts and for follow-up points on issues raised earlier in the meeting.  The Forum can also act as a pressure group.

Since the Forum began it has played a part in establishing a variety of projects: setting up ‘The Crier’, the Torrington newsletter; getting a zebra crossing, which had been campaigned for by young mothers in the town; helping to create the Community Development Trust, which redeveloped the pannier market and established the Castle Hill Centre; going to Westminster to lobby for an NHS dental surgery (and getting one).

Keith Hughes, who was chairman for twenty-two years, is still a member of the Forum which continues to meet and function much as it did at the start.  It has met the needs of community care workers and proved invaluable for them in making personal contacts and affecting outcomes in their respective groups or areas of work.  Keith says members are extremely enthusiastic about networking and the transfer of information and feels sure the Forum will be around for many more years.  He says thanks are due to all those members who have worked for and with the Forum over the past thirty-three years and made it such a great success and asset to the town’s community.