Whitchurch, Devon

It is believed that a church must have been present in Whitchurch as early as the 11th century, and that it was most likely built from the white elvan that can be found at Roborough Down only a few miles away. This may be the derivation of the name of the village ("White-church"), though many other English villages bearing the same name are considered to be thus named simply because their churches were either built of stone, or were whitewashed. The so-called Priory, near the church, is a 19th-century granite building incorporating a square 4th century entrance tower from an earlier structure. ==Governance==

There are three tiers of local government for the civil parish of Whitchurch, at parish, district and county level: Plasterdown Grouped Parish Council, West Devon Borough Council and Devon County Council. The parish council is a grouped parish council covering the two civil parishes of Whitchurch and Sampford Spiney. Whitchurch was an ancient parish. The village of Whitchurch was transferred into the urban district of Tavistock in 1930, but it was not considered appropriate for the whole parish of Whitchurch to be included in an urban district. The residual rural parts of the parish were therefore not transferred to Tavistock and continued to form a parish called Whitchurch, despite no longer including the village after which it was named. ==References==