Dartmouth

Dartmouth, a seaport and municipal borough (till 1867 also parliamentary) in the south of Devonshire, 32 miles S. by W. of Exeter. It is built in picturesque terraces on a steep slope 300 to 400 feet high, on the right bank of the romantic estuary of the river Dart, at a short distance from the sea. The streets are narrow, and many of the houses very old, with overhanging stories, projecting gables, and wood-carvings. St Saviour's Church (circa 1372) has a richly sculptured, painted, and gilt stone pulpit, and a beautifully carved rood-loft. A battery, and the remains of a castle built during the reign of Henry VII., stand at the entrance to the harbour. Pop. (1891) 6038. Dartmouth is a quarantine port of the English Channel, and has a considerable trade with the Mediterranean, and in the Newfoundland fisheries. It is the port of departure of the 'Castle' line of mail steamers to South Africa, and a favourite yachting station—the harbour being deep and land-locked. At Dartmouth, in 1190, the Crusaders, under Richard Cœur-de-Lion, embarked for the Holy Land. The French burned it in Richard's reign, but were repulsed, chiefly by the women, in an attack in 1404. In 1346 Dartmouth furnished 31 ships for the siege of Calais. In 1643 Prince Maurice besieged and garrisoned it; but in 1646 Fairfax stormed and took it. Newcomen, the inventor of the steam-engine, was born here; Sir Humphrey Gilbert was born at Greenway, on the opposite side of the Dart; and another great Elizabethan worthy, John Davis, at Sandridge.