4 June: Devon Day

Devon Day is 4 June because it is the feast day of Saint Petroc, its patron saint. Here are some things you might not know about Devon.

1. In the Iron Age the area we now know as Devon was the home of the Dumnonii Brittonic Celts, Dumnonia, from which the modern name for the county derives.
2. The County town is the City of Exeter, which has several claims to fame. It boasts the narrowest street in the world, Parliament Street which, at its narrowest point is about 0.64 metres (2 ft 1 in) and at its widest point is 1.22 metres (4 ft 0 in) and the oldest civic building in Britain. Parts of Exeter Guildhall date back to 1160 and it is still the venue for council meetings and functions. Inside it is kept the oldest civic seal in England, dating back to 1175. The Royal Clarence Hotel is also said to be the oldest hotel in Britain, built in 1769 but has parts dating back as far as the 1500s.
3. Other places in Devon have things they claim are the oldest, too. Torbay has the oldest purpose built cinema in Europe, dating back to 1914. In Plymouth, there is the oldest bakery in Britain, Jacka Bakery, which baked biscuits for the Pilgrim Fathers to take on board the Mayflower. The oldest golf course is the Royal North Devon Golf Club near Westward Ho!, built in 1864. Then there is the oldest working steam engine in the world, at Dartmouth.
4. That said, Devon also has something that's the newest - the youngest castle, Castle Drogo, which was built in 1930 and is probably the only castle to have lifts and electricity installed in it when it was built. You'll also find the only 16-sided house in the country, A La Ronde, built for two spinster cousins, Jane and Mary Parminter, on their return from a grand tour of Europe in the late 18th century.
5. Famous people from Devon include Agatha Christie, Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Chichester, Robert Falcon Scott, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Chris Martin (Coldplay), Miranda Hart, Peter Cook, Sharron Davies, Sue Barker, Tom Daley and Wayne Sleep.
6. Devon has the only place to be named after a work of fiction and to have an exclamation mark in its name. Westward Ho! was named after the Charles Kingsley novel.
7. Devon's motto is "Auxilio Divino" ("With God's help").
8. Devon County Council's road network is the longest in the country with 8,000 miles of road. While on the subject of roads, the slowest roads in the country are also here. In Exeter's rush hour the average speed of traffic is just 4.6mph, slower even than London.
9. Dartmoor was the home of the Hound of the Baskervilles from the famous Sherlock Holmes story. The film based on the story was filmed there. A less frightening hound is the Jack Russell terrier, which also comes from Devon. Reverend John Russell bought himself a dog which had stumpy legs, huge ears and was great at digging around in filth. He called it Trump and bred from it, thus creating the Jack Russell breed.
10. Devon was the last place in the country to execute Witches. Temperance Lloyd, Susannah Edwards and Mary Trembles, of Bideford were executed in 1682 for causing illness and death by the black arts.