The village of Hartland, whose parish incorporates the hamlet of

Stoke Stoke is a common place name in the United Kingdom. Stoke may refer to: Places United Kingdom The largest city called Stoke is Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire. See below. Berkshire * Stoke Row, Berkshire Bristol * Stoke Bishop * Stok ...

to the west and the village of Meddon in the south, is the most north-westerly settlement in the county of

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

, England. Now a large village which acts as a centre for a rural neighbourhood and has minor

tourist Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mo ...

traffic, until Tudor times Hartland was an important

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...

. It lies close to the promontory of

Hartland Point Hartland Point is a high rocky outcrop of land on the north-western tip of the Devon coast in England. It is three miles (5 km) north-west of the village of Hartland. The point marks the western limit (on the English side) of the Bristol C ...

, where the coast of Devon turns from facing north into the

Bristol Channel The Bristol Channel ( cy, Môr Hafren, literal translation: "Severn Sea") is a major inlet in the island of Great Britain, separating South Wales from Devon and Somerset in South West England. It extends from the lower estuary of the River Seve ...

to face west into the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

. There is an important

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mar ...

on the point. The town's harbour,

Hartland Quay Hartland Quay is located on the Atlantic coast of Devon, England, south of Hartland Point and north of Bude, Cornwall. It experiences some of the roughest seas in winter and is a former harbour. History The harbour dated back to the time of Henry ...

, is to the south of the point: the quay was originally built in the late 16th century but was swept away in 1887. The high tower of the Church of Saint Nectan in Stoke remains a significant landmark for ships in the

. The appropriate electoral ward is called ''Hartland'' ''and Bradworthy''. Its population at the 2011 census was 3,019.

Communications

Church in the centre of Hartland - geograph

Hartland is a convenient centre for walking parts of the

South West Coast Path The South West Coast Path is England's longest waymarked long-distance footpath and a National Trail. It stretches for , running from Minehead in Somerset, along the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, to Poole Harbour in Dorset. Because it rises a ...

, and the wild coastal scenery around the point is some of the most dramatic on the path, with views across to

Lundy Lundy is an English island in the Bristol Channel. It was a micronation from 1925–1969. It forms part of the district of Torridge in the county of Devon. About long and wide, Lundy has had a long and turbulent history, frequently chang ...

Island. From Hartland Point, the Lundy Company operates its helicopter service to Lundy between November and March. The 319 bus service, a council-supported infrequent route operated by Stagecoach Devon, runs from

Barnstaple Barnstaple ( or ) is a river-port town in North Devon, England, at the River Taw's lowest crossing point before the Bristol Channel. From the 14th century, it was licensed to export wool and won great wealth. Later it imported Irish wool, bu ...

to Hartland and return. There is also a 519 service, which runs to

Bude Bude (; kw, Porthbud) is a seaside town in north east Cornwall, England, in the civil parish of Bude-Stratton and at the mouth of the River Neet (also known locally as the River Strat). It was sometimes formerly known as Bude Haven.''Cornish ...

History and notable buildings

The town was in the past known as Harton and was an unreformed

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle Ag ...

, finally abolished in 1886. In medieval times there was an important abbey at Hartland, where the shrine of St Nectan was venerated. Hartland Abbey and the parish church are located some away in Stoke.

Hartland Abbey

Hartland Abbey was built in 1157 and consecrated by

Bartholomew Iscanus Bartholomew of Exeter (died 1184) was a medieval Bishop of Exeter. He came from Normandy and after being a clerk of the Archbishop of Canterbury, was made Archdeacon of Exeter in 1155. He became Bishop of Exeter in 1161. Known for his knowl ...

in 1160 (Bartholomew was appointed

Bishop of Exeter The Bishop of Exeter is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Exeter in the Province of Canterbury. Since 30 April 2014 the ordinary has been Robert Atwell.

the following year). It was converted into an

Augustinian Augustinian may refer to: *Augustinians, members of religious orders following the Rule of St Augustine *Augustinianism, the teachings of Augustine of Hippo and his intellectual heirs *Someone who follows Augustine of Hippo * Canons Regular of Sain ...

abbey in 1189. In 1539 it was the last monastery to be dissolved by

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...

. The King gave the building to William Abbot, his Sergeant of the Wine Cellar at

Hampton Court Hampton Court Palace is a Grade I listed royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, southwest and upstream of central London on the River Thames. The building of the palace began in 1514 for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the chief ...

. William Abbot converted what had been the Abbot's Lodging into a mansion. The present house incorporates a few components from Tudor times but is mainly the wing added to the old house in 1705 (the north-west corner being the work of 'Mr Mathews' (according to the author of the ''Beauties of England and Wales''). Further alterations were made in about 1860.Pevsner, N. (1952) North Devon. Penguin Books The gardens were laid out by

Gertrude Jekyll Gertrude Jekyll ( ; 29 November 1843 – 8 December 1932) was a British horticulturist, garden designer, craftswoman, photographer, writer and artist. She created over 400 gardens in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, and wrote ...

Churches

Saint Nectan Saint Nectan, sometimes styled Saint Nectan of Hartland, was a 5th-century holy man who lived in Stoke, Hartland, in the nowadays English, and at the time brythonic-speaking county of Devon, where the prominent St Nectan's Church, Hartland is d ...

, sometimes styled Saint ''Nectan of Hartland'', was a 5th-century holy man who lived in Stoke. The Anglican church is St Nectan's Church, Stoke, Hartland. The Roman Catholic Church ( Our Lady and St Nectan's Church, Hartland) was opened in 1964: it was also dedicated to St Nectan. The building was closed in 2010 due to no priests being available to celebrate mass there, and was demolished in 2012. The Parish Church of St Nectan has the highest tower in Devon (), built in the late Perpendicular style. The church is large () and was built in the mid-14th century. Notable features include the fine Norman font, the rood screen (described as the finest in north Devon) and the old wagon roofs. The monuments include an elaborate medieval tomb-chest, a small brass of 1610 and a metal-inlaid lid of a churchyard tomb from 1618.

Historic estates

Historic estates within the parish include: * Docton

Toponymy

The name "Hartland" presumably derives from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

word "heort" for a

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...

(compare with

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

"hjort" and

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

"hert"), and it is therefore surprising that it is not more common in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The many places in other English-speaking countries called Hartland probably bear witness to the historic importance of Hartland rather than being independent derivations, since the word "hart" was largely obsolete before the European discovery of the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...

. Before the discovery of America, the word Hart was common in surnames. Family names such as Hartshorne were first mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

. The nearby

was named "promontory of Hercules" during the Roman occupation, which could have influenced the later naming of the village and parish.

Miscellany

Twin town Plozévet,

Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Natural history The coast at Hartland is part of the North Devon Coast AONB. The

British Geological Survey The British Geological Survey (BGS) is a partly publicly funded body which aims to advance geoscientific knowledge of the United Kingdom landmass and its continental shelf by means of systematic surveying, monitoring and research. The BGS h ...

operates a magnetic observatory (one of three in the UK) just to the north of Hartland. Television In early 2008, scenery and a cottage on the Hartland Abbey estate were featured in the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...