DARTMOUTH

DARTMOUTH still contains a wealth of medieval and Elizabethan buildings in its a patchwork of narrow lanes and stone stairways. A significant number of those are historic listed building.  One of the most obvious is the Butterwalk, built 1635 to 1640. Its intricately carved wooden fascia is supported on granite columns.

In 1231 The lord of the manor of Dartmouth was given the rights to hold a weekly market and an annual fair ;  in 1281, a legal case proved that the Lord of Totnes had the right to charge tolls on ships using the river. 

 In 1306 Nicholas de Pomeray  Lord of Dartmouth ,also called Nicholas of Tewkesbury  & former Sheriff of Devon  held the manors of Clifton' and Clauton',  for life  In 1327 he bought up this right and conveyed the town, river and port to the king, Edward I , thereby making Dartmouth a Royal Borough.  The king gave the river to the Duchy of Cornwall in 1333, which still owns the "fundus" or bed of the river.

Much of DARTMOUTH'S original wealth came from a 13th Century trade in Bordeaux wine. King Henry II, father of Richard the Lionheart and the dastardly John, ruled a large area of France, including Aquitaine and Bordeaux which allowed the imports of Bordeaux wine without import duties. 

In 1341 Edward lll granted Clifton Dartmouth Hardness full Borough status and by 1347 Dartmouth was the third port of the kingdom, with 31 ships and 757 men, at the time Plymouth had only 26 ships and 603 men. 

Dartmouth in the 13th & 14th centuries was significant, its fame stretched  to the east coast Cinque Ports and the town high status of the town was confirmed in 1390, when it was appointed as the sole port for the export of tin. Dartmoor produced more tin than Cornwall ever did later centuries and for some time Dartmouth was the only port permitted to export that tin ore. When mixed with copper which was also found on Dartmoor it became bronze a valuable ore for military hard wear gun, swords, shield which was also used  for decorative items like fountains and statues .  

The siege of Calais (1347) ranked Dartmouth the third port in the kingdom, Dartmouth contributed  31 ships and 757 men, while Plymouth only found 26 ships and 603 men.

When you drive cross Dartmoor , if you look carefully, you can see that every valley shows evidence of the workings of the alluvial tinners in the early medieval times. They smelted the ore in small holes in the ground and when they had sufficient to make it worth while to make the  difficult journey across the moor they loaded their ingots onto pack horses and carried down to the nearest Stannary Town

 In Dartmouth's case the southern edges of the moor the Stannary towns were Ashburton & Plympton  and on the northern  side its was Chagford & Tavistock . Once the tin had been weighed, a corner was off to test for quality before it was stamped and taxed. Those corners, called 'coynes' & with their stamps may be the source of the word 'coinage'  - If it was to be exported it was taken by pack horse  to Dartmouth for shipping. 

THE DARTMOUTH POLL TAX OF 1377, was written in both Latin and French.

The heading, totals, and some names are in Latin but most of the household listings are in French. Thus the first listing appears as "John Carpenter et Rose safemme et « servantz". Each line in the text represents one household. The translation retains all surnames as they originally appear but first names have generally been standardized except when unusual or foreign-sounding. Note particularly the number of French surnames (such as 'Breton'), an indication of the immigration of French traders and sailors to the port.

Illegible or torn sections of the manuscript are indicated by ***. m. i

Particulars of the account of John Hauley, Benedict Botteshale, William Clerk and Thomas Assheldene, collectors of the subsidy of 4d. a head granted to King Edward III(1327-1377) from the laity in the last year of his reign in the town of Dartmouth, namely from each lay person man and woman of this town more than 14 years old 4d., excepting the truly mendicant.

Of Dartmouth's 221 households, 172 consisted of a husband and wife, 34 were headed by women and 15 by single men. Excluding the servants, whose gender is not stated, the poll tax lists 190 men and 209 women. Two of the households headed by women were comprised of two women who were probably either sisters or mother and daughter since they shared the same surname. 

All the single men appear to have lived alone except for four who had servants taxed as part of their households. 

One household, that headed by Thomas Assheldene, one of the collectors of the poll tax, included his widowed mother, as well as his wife and six servants. His mother, Anice Asshenden, is specifically mentioned by her full name, an unusual occurrence for female dependents. This designation is probably due both to the fact that her son was one of the tax collectors and that she was a wealthy widow in her own right whose late husband had served as mayor of Dartmouth.20

Only four children fourteen years of age or older are assessed in the poll tax: three sons and one daughter. It is likely that some evasion occurred amongst this group of adolescents; unmarried men and women (especially women) were the ones most likely to escape taxation.21 On the other hand, the lack of older children in the tax list may be due in large part to the tendency for urban adolescents to leave home early to serve as servants or apprentices in the households of others. Thus the 106 servants enumerated in the Dartmouth poll tax probably consisted largely of young people between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five. Of the 69 Dartmouth households which possessed servants, 46 had only one servant, 13 included two servants, 8 had three, 1 had four and 1 had six. Two of these households included a 'valet

The port books(3) and customs revenues show that the port shared in the national prosperity of trade, and that the general overseas trade of the port, which excluded both the Newfoundland codfishing trade, and the local coasting trade, reached its height between l6l4 and 1624. Figures quoted by W . B . Stephens  show that the customs revenue from the port between l6l4 and 1620 ranked among that of the eight greatest English ports. 

The prosperity of the port between 1620 and 1640 did not, however, lie in the handling of overseas trade. It was the Newfoundland cod trade that brought a third and vital function to the town: the organisation, finance, and operation of the triangular trade between the port, the fishing banks across the Atlantic, and the markets of France, Portugal and Spain. The cod trade brought the town independence from the merchants of other centres. 

The share of Totnes merchants in the general trade of the port dropped from about 5/6th fivesixths in 15&5 to about half in 1634-. In these years Dartmouth became the greatest of England's cod-fishing ports, with a fleet of up to 80 vessels sailing annually across the Atlantic. The trade offered big rewards to those who would risk the capital required. The cost of fitting out a hundred ton boat manned by 40 men was estimated in 1621 at £300. 

A successful voyage could yield gross receipts from the sale of fish and fish oil in continental ports of about £1,000. Dartmouth must have been peculiarly well-suited to the development of this freely-organised trade. The Mayor and corporation acted much like the governors of a trading company in promoting and financing it: lobbying Parliament and fighting against the company-system favoured by the bigger ports. Their success in the decades before the Civil War brought new life and wealth to the town.