Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/321

Rh The old chapel of S. Laurence in the town, now converted into a grammar school, belonged to the guild of the cloth-workers, and their seal became the arms of the borough: On a mount vert, a chapel with spire, in dexter chief the sun tin splendour, in inister a crescent moon, in dexter base a teasel, in sinister a saltire. The teasel and sun and moon were emblematical of the chief staples of the place; the woollen trade and the mining interests.

The old fulling-mills were locally termed tucking-mills, and the extent to which cloth-working was carried on in South Devon is shown by the prevalence of the surname Tucker.

The process of manufacture given by Westcote, in 1630, is as follows:—

The clothier was a man of some means, that bought the yarn or abb in the Tuesday's market from Cornish and Tavistock spinners, who kept this