About Barnstaple Barnstaple is a thriving town situated in the southwest corner of England. The town is about 45 minutes from Tiverton. After leaving the M5 Motorway you join the A361, the North Devon Link road, this will take you straight to the town centre. In the heart of Barnstaple you can find the Victorian built Pannier Market, which opened around 1856. The Pannier Market still hosts a weekly market up to this very day, most days of the week you will fine something happening in the market. According to a national newspaper, the Pannier Market is one of the top ten food markets of England. Along the length of the Pannier Market is Butchers Row, Butchers Row has 10 shops that sell local agricultural goods, these shops opened about the same time as the Pannier Market. If you are looking for local produce then this is where you will find it.
Just down from the market is the main high street, here you can find a wide variety of shops. Enough to whet the appetite of any avid shopper, just off the high street is the Green Lanes shopping centre. Within the shopping centre, you can find some larger national shops plus plenty of coffee shops to have a rest after your days shopping. Just down from the high street is The Strand, this area is being re-developed to make it a pedestrian only area. From here, you can watch the wildlife on the River Taw as the river flows through the countryside to Instow where the two rivers meet. At one end of The Strand, you can see the newly opened Western Bypass Bridge. At the other end of The Strand is the newly developed Square. Across The Square is The Barnstaple Clock Tower, the clock was erected in 1862 as a memorial to Prince Albert. Also on The Square is the old library that is now the town museum. Beside the museum is the medieval long bridge that crosses the River Taw. The Western Bypass Bridge opened in May 2007. The hope is that the bridge will bring relief to the town’s traffic congestion problems. At present, this seems to have worked, with it only taking 10 minutes to travel across town compared to an hour before the bridge opened. Barnstaple is stooped in history and is recognized as being the oldest borough in England, it’s history ranges back to before the publication of the Doomsday Book in 1065, part of this history can be seen at the ceremony to celebrate the opening of the Barnstaple Fair, the Fair is an annual event of celebration that is held every September. Gallery
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