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 CHAPTER XIV. ASHBURTON

PLEASANT, sleepy, country town, hardly able to maintain its old-world dignity against the ruffling, modern, manufacturing Buckfastleigh. A pleasant centre, whence delightful excursions may be made, and with an old-world aroma about it, as though preserved in pot-pourri.

It has a beautiful church. Ashburton consisted of a royal and an episcopal manor, each with its several municipal officers. A stream divided the manors. Ashburton is the tun on the Ashburn. Ash is but another form of Exe, from usk, water. It owed its growth and prosperity to the wool trade. The proximity to Dartmoor, an unrivalled run for sheep, and the water of the stream to turn the mills, gave to Ashburton a great significance as a centre of cloth manufacture. Added to which it was a stannary town. 248