Abbey gateway, Tavistock

Taken on 12/06/1937 from the Vicarage garden in Tavistock looking through the Abbey gateway. Around the year AD 974 a Benedictine Abbey was founded where the centre of the Town now sits. At the time of the conquest in 1066 Tavistock was firmly established as an ecclesiastic and trading centre and the Abbey prospered. In 1539 Henry VIII dissolved the Abbey, and its grounds and property were 'gifted' to Lord John Russell, the ancestor of a long line of earls and later the dukes of Bedford. The parish church of St Eustachius was dedicated in 1318, with later rebuilding and enlargement.