The name ‘Ivy Bridge’ was originally reference to the crossing on the River Erme as opposed to any settlement. Quite how long the bridge had existed is not precisely known. Some believe it had been constructed by the monks of Plympton Priory (founded in 1121) to provide safe passage to their lands at Wrangaton, Dean Prior and Buckfastleigh.

From this period onwards the area belonged to the Lord of the Manor. The families of Bonville, Crocker and Rogers are all recorded. The latter family held the manor for two hundred years, spanning six generations until the male line ended in 1895 and the estate was dispersed and sold off.

By the sixteenth century the small community of manor tenants began to resemble a village. Most were farming the land whilst in time they were joined by craftsmen as corn and tucking mills began to appear beside the fast-flowing waters of the River Erme.

A road running through Ivybridge had existed since Tudor times, being the post road from London to Plymouth. The first recorded inn at Ivybridge was the ‘Three Tuns’ which dates to the middle of the seventeenth century. It was in the centre of the village on this main thoroughfare and ideally placed to provide for the needs of the stagecoach traveller. By the 1780s this inn, now named The Royal Oak, rapidly lost trade to the modern, newly established London Inn located by the old Ivy Bridge.

In the early 1800s, Ivybridge began to expand with houses constructed along Erme Road, Highland Street, Green Street (which no longer exists) and Fore Street with the latter having most of the shops.

In 1819 the turnpike road between Exeter and Plymouth was redesigned so that stagecoaches could avoid the awkward double turn at the bridge. To take this road across the river a new bridge was completed in 1833, financed by the Plymouth Eastern Turnpike Trustees. This bridge connected Fore Street with Exeter Street avoiding the old Ivy Bridge and with it the London Inn. The Rogers Arms, later the Ivybridge Hotel, gained the dominant position and became the major coaching inn and post house.

Until 1789 Ivybridge had no place of worship. The nearest parish churches of Cornwood, Harford, Ugborough and Ermington would have all entailed a considerable walk. The chapel of ease completed in this year was later enlarged in 1835 to meet the needs of the growing population and was henceforth known as the Church of St. John the Evangelist. Ivybridge was then made an Ecclesiastical District.

The church however found it difficult to retain a chaplain and at times was without one entirely, Local people began drifting away to the Wesleyan movement. A Methodist Chapel was built in 1812 and later enlarged in 1860 before an entirely new and very much larger church was built in 1874.

A few years earlier, in 1869, the construction of the Congregational Church was completed on land donated by the owner of Stowford Paper Mill, John Allen. This today is known as Ivybridge Baptist Church.

In 1848 the South Devon Railway opened a railway station in Ivybridge. As travellers abandoned the stagecoach, the Ivybridge Hotel suffered greatly and was closed soon afterwards. With the success of the railway came development on land below the station known as Beacons. Later, with the conversion of the railway line from broad to standard gauge together with the double tracking, the original Brunel viaduct was replaced by a new one in 1893.

In the first half of the nineteenth century local government in Ivybridge had been of a parochial basis under the ancient four parishes of Harford, Cornwood, Ugborough and Ermington. However, in 1872 Ivybridge appointed its Local Board of Health. The Public Health Act of that year mapped out the country into Sanitary Districts permitting the election of Boards of Health, bringing the supply of water, sewerage, drainage, street cleansing, paving and environmental health regulation under a single local body. One of the first tasks undertaken was the construction of a reservoir located in Longtimber Woods to supply the village with clean drinking water.

Whilst the reservoir provided clean water to the district its location at 220 feet above Ordnance datum did not provide good water pressure and this was to pose a problem for the fire brigade in dealing with fires within the district. This situation did not improve until the new water supply came on stream during June 1916, with the construction of the reservoir at Butter Brook on Harford Moor.

It is believed that a corn mill existed at Stowford in the parish of Harford as early as the 13th century although records beyond this date seem then to disappear. Later, in the 16th century, within the manor of Ivybridge, it is recorded that Humfrey Bonville, lord of the manor, leased properties to William Cannycote and Henry Withycombe for the purpose of grinding corn. These appear to be the earliest known reference to the Ivybridge corn mills.

At Stowford (a local name for a ford crossing), records of a mill reappear during the 18th century with a grist mill being recorded in 1713. A flour mill was later recorded under the occupation of William Saunders amongst others, before the property was eventually required for the extension of the neighbouring paper mill.

Paper manufacturing came to Ivybridge in 1787 when William Dunsterville, a Plymouth businessman, purchased the lease for the Barton of Stowford from the Lukesland Estate. His prime interest was to establish a paper mill adjacent to the existing corn mill and leat. He already had experience in paper making from his previous venture at Millbay Mill.

A second paper mill (Ivybridge Paper Mills) was established in 1814 by William Pym located a little further downstream. It was later taken over by Benjamin Holman with the mill manufacturing predominantly brown wrapping papers. This used water diverted from the River Erme via a sluice gate near to the New Bridge into a leat which ran down Fore Street.

Sharing the channelled water at this time was a tannery under the ownership of John Sanders. This continued in operation under several owners until the early twentieth century. The most notable owner was Samuel Head, a respected member of the local community. He had lived in Ivybridge for over 50 years and served on the Local Board.

Holman’s paper mill eventually fell on hard times with difficult trading conditions exacerbated by cheap imported paper. It was sold by public auction and purchased by Henry John Fice Lee in 1903. This gentleman had previously leased the Union Mills and went on to convert the paper mill into a corn and provender mill. The new façade of Lee’s Mill in the centre of Fore Street became an iconic feature of Ivybridge.

Stowford Paper Mill, by contrast, prospered under the ownership of John Allen and his two sons who operated the mill for over sixty years. It is debateable that without their investment, enterprise and vision, that the paper mill would have survived the second half of the nineteenth century.

During the twentieth century it continued to thrive under the ownership of the well established paper making company, Wiggins Teape. This company purchased the mill in 1930 and gradually improved production capacity and manufacturing techniques. A substantial investment programme occurred during the 1980s modernising much of the equipment. The mill finally closed on 21 November 2013. It has been estimated that the mill produced close to a million tonnes of paper and employed thousands of people. Many generations of Ivybridge families found employment at the mill and individuals serving 30 years and beyond common place, something reflected in our own scrapbook page. Due to the efforts of the employees and focus on producing speciality papers it survived long after many similar mills had closed.

In the early part of the twentieth century substantial deposits of kaolin (china clay) were discovered on southern Dartmoor, the result of the decomposition of the granite that created the very landscape. The Redlake China Clay pits would continue in operation until the 1930s when the economic depression would result in its closure.

The first village school opened on 30 December 1856 on land donated by Lady Georgina Rogers, the wife of the eight baronet, Sir Frederick Rogers who lived at Blachford Estate in Cornwood. Until that date education was provided by a number of private schools.

The Elementary Education Act 1870 was the very first piece of legislation to deal specifically with the provision of education in Britain, establishing a system of ‘school boards’ to build and manage schools in areas where they were needed. These Boards were to provide elementary education for children aged between 5 and 13. In Ivybridge a School Board existed from 1893 and in 1895 they officially took control of the school from the Ermington Board. By 1898 the average attendance at the was recorded at 172 boys and girls and 126 infants.

In 1887 the trustees of Dame Hannah Rogers decided to build a school in Ivybridge for orphan girls, training them for domestic service. The elegant building, now Tremarran Court, provided education and accommodation for the girls. Apart from the three Rs and religious instruction, they were taught the skills of needlework and intricate embroidery.

By the mid-50s growing numbers at the solitary all-age village school resulted in the creation of a new secondary school. Construction work began in 1957 and the new school was officially opened in 1958.

The role of individual men and women have always been of great significance in the development of any town or village. Ivybridge is no exception.

William Sherwell has the description of Ivybridge’s first Methodist and was the driving force in establishing the first Methodist chapel in 1813 whilst Rev. George W. Anstiss who became vicar of St. Johns Church in 1873, strenuously persevered with the procurement of a replacement when the original church became dilapidated and unfit for purpose.

John Allen, the owner of Stowford Paper Mill, together with his sons contributed greatly to the prosperity of Ivybridge. The mill provided employment for up to 500 people at its peak and the family built several cottages in Fore Street for workers accommodation. Devout Methodists, they also financed the new Methodist Church in its entirety.

Organisations must not be forgotten particularly during the war years. The Ivybridge Civil Defence personnel undertook many tasks to ensure the safety of others. Ivybridge had its own Home Guard platoon whilst the women, many members of the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service, undertook a variety of jobs providing food, shelter and general information to those in need. The younger women of course helped to keep the nation fed with their sterling work as ‘Land Girls’.

Members of the Women’s Institute participated in a notable event in the creation of the 24 panel, New World Tapestry during the 1980s. The panel allocated to Ivybridge depicted the 1586 colonisation of Roanoke Island, situated on the Atlantic coastline of what is now North Carolina. It was created in a rented room at the Methodist Church.

John Congdon, the pro-European Chairman of Ivybridge Parish Council was a leading figure in the establishment of the Ivybridge and District Twinning Association to assist with the development of links and exchanges between Ivybridge and the French town of St. Pierre-sur-Dives. Then in 1973 he made Ivybridge a place distinctly in the minority when responding to the government’s invitation to hold the ‘Fanfare for Europe’ celebratory event to mark the UK’s entry into Europe. In 1977, he became the first mayor of Ivybridge.

Ivybridge, located in the rolling countryside of the South Hams, enabled many families to make a living from the land. Livestock farming for both meat and milk production have historically been the mainstay of activity. Herds of light red South Devon cattle, which until the twentieth century were virtually unknown outside of the area, a common sight. During the 1920s and 30s the Ivybridge and District Poultry, Pigeon and Fur Society flourished, and their annual shows were well supported with an abundance of exotic breeds.

Ivybridge Young Farmers Club was founded in 1938 providing practical instruction and social engagement for the younger generations, whilst Ivybridge Agricultural Show and Gymkhana hosted at Filham Park, was always an event people from all walks of life looked forward to in the summer diary.

Earlier, in 1911, Stowford Lodge with its five-acre garden was briefly taken over by the Devonshire School of Gardening. Misses May Crooke and Mabel Carlyon trained young ladies who wished to study horticulture and it was the only such establishment in the South West.

Ivybridge for decades had a thriving Gardening Association and growing vegetables and flowers has always been a popular pastime for many inhabitants.

The rigorous mapping of the United Kingdom began in the early nineteenth century based on the triangulation principle. This was a technique developed by a local man William Mudge. Later benchmarks were employed to establish levelling lines across the country. Benchmarks typically were incised horizontal lines with a broad arrow, Such a mark can be found at the Methodist Church, the simple cut mark is clear to see.

Campaigns for women’s rights including the right to vote gained significant momentum at the turn of the twentieth century when Millicent Fawcett founded the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. Campaigners were known as suffragists and they believed that debate, petitions and peaceful protest were the keys to success. The suffragettes led by Emmeline Pankhurst however, campaigned in a decidedly more militant approach.

The Great Pilgrimage of 1913 culminated with 50,000 women attending a rally in Hyde Park in July. The march’s journey through Devon saw the women gathering at Plympton to stir up support and they then moved onto Ivybridge where they had a picnic in Victoria Park.

On 4 August 1914, Great Britain declared war on Germany. During the next four years of hostilities a significant number of young men from Ivybridge, like everywhere in Britain, enlisted to serve their King and Country. A Roll of Honour at St. Johns Church lists the names of all those who served. Many local men were decorated for acts of gallantry.  The list was gathered by Frederick Rutherford the local chemist together with the vicar.

When World War 1 began in 1914 it was estimated that over 3 million horses were at work in Britain but the war was to become heavily dependent on horses to move the army and its supplies across Europe. Under the Impressment Act, the Army Remount Department was able to acquire horses and mules during the war. Owners had to surrender their horses if they were unable to prove that they were required for essential work.

From December 1917, Stowford Lodge, kindly lent by the owners of Stowford Paper Mill became a second line V.A.D. (Voluntary Aid Detachment) Hospital, providing 50 beds. Patients were generally less seriously wounded than at general hospitals and offered a comfortable haven for recuperation. The hospital was equipped and liberally supported by the residents of Ivybridge and the surrounding area. It remained in operation until January 1919.

World War One ended at 11 a.m. on the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, with Germany signing an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railway carriage outside Compiégne in France.

On the morning of the 11 November 1918, the ringing of the large bell in the village notified to the residents of Ivybridge that the Armistice with Germany had been signed. The war was over and peace once again prevailed.

Only two decades later, on 3 September 1939, the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, announced that Britain had once again declared war with Germany. Ivybridge provided relatively safe accommodation for various government departments during the war years.

The town’s air raid precautions were made up of air raid wardens, a report post, two ambulance units, a first aid post, a rescue squad and a decontamination squad in the event of a gas attack.

The air raids on the city of Plymouth during The Blitz brought fear and disruption to the daily life of thousands of its inhabitants. Ivybridge, like many of the surrounding places, were inundated with people coming on foot, bicycle and motorised transport seeking safe refuge at night. Many families opened up their homes to relatives and friends. The Methodist church hall served tea and refreshments and on occasions over one thousand people arrived in Ivybridge with 300 sleeping in its cinema.

In May, 1943, the American GIs of the 116th Infantry Regiment arrived in Ivybridge as part of Operation Bolero, a long-range plan for transferring and then accommodating almost 2 million American servicemen in Britain in the run-up to an invasion of Europe.

During the war millions of ration books were printed and people had to use them to buy food, clothing and motor fuel.

At the time of Churchill’s broadcast on the 8th May 1945 declaring that the was was over, it was documented that the streets of Ivybridge were deserted, everyone was in doors. However, from 6.30 onward, it was the complete reverse, crowds had flocked to the churches for special services and then later celebrations both at home and in the streets.

“To pleasure-seekers, Ivybridge, is more celebrated for its woods and glades and rivers than the paper factories which have made its commercial prosperity. The village itself, seen from the station or the moor above it, makes a picture of bright rural peace. The woods on the west side of the Erme are always open to the public, and those on the east by permission of the owners. In spring and summer, trees, and birds, and flowers make the Erme valley a true place of recreation. An hotel and several cottages, which bear the mystic sign ”Tea made and water boiled” prevent the claims of the physical man from being neglected.”

Western Morning News 13 July 1893

Ivybridge by the mid nineteenth century was well established as a tourist destination and with the new craze of sending postcards, a booming industry was created.

After the Second World War, once life returned to a semblance of normality, employees of Stowford Paper Mill were in desperate need of a new recreation field. With two football teams and a flourishing cricket club, the mill’s owner succeeded in acquiring a suitable field next to its effluent water settling beds at Filham. The new sports ground was officially opened on 23 May 1953 on the occasion of the first home cricket match with Hele, the company’s sister paper mill in Exeter.

The ground later became home to the all-conquering Portals Athletic AFC who succeeded in winning all the major trophies in the Plymouth and District League in the 1964-65 season.

During the rapid development of Ivybridge in the 1980s, the field was sold and today forms part of The Paddocks housing estate.

In 1989 the Town Council purchased Filham Park, an area of 34 acres of country park for the benefit of the residents of Ivybridge. Subsequently, sports pitches for football and rugby have been installed and it is now the home of Ivybridge Cricket Club. A large lake was also created offering the opportunity to fish for a variety of species such as roach, carp, chub, bream and tench.

After the second World War with the mood across Europe shifting towards reconciliation, European towns looked outward in search of new solidarities. By the late 1970s the twinning of British towns with European counterparts was associated with civic and economic links and cultural exchanges. It is estimated that there are around 2,000 British municipalities twinned with towns abroad, the majority in Western Europe such as France and Germany.