Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/324

252 site and out of the materials of the abbey a spinning factory was established.

More wool is now worked up by the aid of the power-looms and combing machines at Ashburton and Buckfastleigh than in the old prosperous times.

Ashburton's most distinguished son was John Dunning, first Baron Ashburton. He belonged to a respectable family, originally seated in Walkhampton parish, which, though not bearing an armorial coat, was yet above the class of yeomen. His father, John Dunning, settled as an attorney at Ashburton, where the future Lord Ashburton was born in 1731. John Dunning the elder had as one of his clients Sir Thomas Clarke, Master of