Callington
Encyclopedia
Callington is a civil parish and town in southeast Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. The town is situated approximately seven miles (11 km) north of Saltash
Saltash
Saltash is a town and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It has a population of 14,964. It lies in the south east of Cornwall, facing Plymouth over the River Tamar. It was in the Caradon district until March 2009 and is known as "the gateway to Cornwall". Saltash means ash tree by...

 and nine miles south of Launceston.

Callington parish had a population of 4,783 in 2001, according to the 2001 census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

.

Geography

The town is situated in east Cornwall between Dartmoor
Dartmoor
Dartmoor is an area of moorland in south Devon, England. Protected by National Park status, it covers .The granite upland dates from the Carboniferous period of geological history. The moorland is capped with many exposed granite hilltops known as tors, providing habitats for Dartmoor wildlife. The...

 to the east and Bodmin Moor
Bodmin Moor
Bodmin Moor is a granite moorland in northeastern Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is in size, and originally dates from the Carboniferous period of geological history....

 to the west. A former agricultural market town, it lies at the intersection of the south-north A388 Saltash to Launceston road and the east-west A390
A390 road
The A390 is a road in Cornwall and Devon, England. It runs from Tavistock to north west of the city of Truro. Starting in Tavistock, it heads south-westwards towards Liskeard, crossing over the River Tamar and into Cornwall, then through Gunnislake and Callington. Immediately before Liskeard, it...

 Tavistock to Liskeard
Liskeard
Liskeard is an ancient stannary and market town and civil parish in south east Cornwall, England, United Kingdom.Liskeard is situated approximately 20 miles west of Plymouth, west of the River Tamar and the border with Devon, and 12 miles east of Bodmin...

 road.

Kit Hill is a mile northeast of the town and rises to 333 metres (1,092.5 ft) with views of Dartmoor, Bodmin Moor
Bodmin Moor
Bodmin Moor is a granite moorland in northeastern Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is in size, and originally dates from the Carboniferous period of geological history....

 and the River Tamar
River Tamar
The Tamar is a river in South West England, that forms most of the border between Devon and Cornwall . It is one of several British rivers whose ancient name is assumed to be derived from a prehistoric river word apparently meaning "dark flowing" and which it shares with the River Thames.The...

.

Railway station

Callington railway station was the terminus for a branch line that ran from Bere Alston
Bere Alston
Bere Alston is a small village in West Devon in the county of Devon in England. It forms part of the civil parish of Bere Ferrers.-History and geography:...

, the junction with the Southern Railway
Southern Railway (Great Britain)
The Southern Railway was a British railway company established in the 1923 Grouping. It linked London with the Channel ports, South West England, South coast resorts and Kent...

's Tavistock to Plymouth line. The railway line beyond Gunnislake
Gunnislake
Gunnislake is a large village in east Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated in the Tamar Valley approximately ten miles north of Plymouth...

 to the Callington terminus was closed in the 1960s, due to low usage and the fact that the final sections of the line had several severe gradients and speed restrictions which made operating difficult. It is still possible to travel by rail on the Tamar Valley Line
Tamar Valley Line
The Tamar Valley Line is a railway line from Devonport in Plymouth Devon, to Gunnislake in Cornwall, United Kingdom. The line follows the River Tamar for much of its route.-History:...

 from Plymouth as far as Gunnislake via Bere Alston, where trains reverse. For most of its journey the line follows the River Tamar. The nearest mainline train station to Callington is at Saltash.

Economy

Food manufacturer Ginsters
Ginsters
Ginsters is a company based in Callington in Cornwall, in the south-west of England. The biggest selling pasty maker in the UK, it specialises in making mass produced pasties, sausage rolls, sandwiches, pasta bowls and other savoury snacks.-History:...

 is the largest employer in the town and employs hundreds of locals as well as many immigrants who have arrived as a consequence of the recent accession to the EU of a number of Eastern European countries.

Ginsters uses local produce in many of its products, buying potatoes and other vegetables from local farmers and suppliers.

Cornwall is a predominantly low wage economy with a high proportion of its income being derived from agriculture and tourism.

History

The town has long been supposed to be the site of the ancient tribal capital of the Kingdom of Cornwall
Kingdom of Cornwall
The Kingdom of Cornwall was an independent polity in southwest Britain during the Early Middle Ages, roughly coterminous with the modern English county of Cornwall. During the sub-Roman and early medieval periods Cornwall was evidently part of the kingdom of Dumnonia, which included most of the...

 and Arthurian base, known in the sources as Celliwig
Celliwig
Celliwig, Kelliwic or Gelliwic, is perhaps the earliest named location for the court of King Arthur. It may be translated as 'forest grove'.-Literary references:...

. References to it are made repeatedly, particularly in the Welsh Triads
Welsh Triads
The Welsh Triads are a group of related texts in medieval manuscripts which preserve fragments of Welsh folklore, mythology and traditional history in groups of three. The triad is a rhetorical form whereby objects are grouped together in threes, with a heading indicating the point of likeness...

 and other manuscripts. However, it should be noted, that Callington is only the foremost among several contending possible locations.

In the 18th century, Callington was one of the most important mining areas in Great Britain
Kingdom of Great Britain
The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...

. Deposits of silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

 were found nearby in Silver Valley. Today, the area is marked by mining remains, but there are no active mine
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

s. However, granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 is still quarried on Hingston Down
Hingston Down
Hingston Down is a hill not far from Gunnislake in Cornwall in the United Kingdom.-History:This is possibly the Hingston Down mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which says that in 835 Egbert king of the West Saxons defeated an army of Vikings and Cornish at Hengestdun = "Stallion Hill"...

.

The former Callington constituency
Callington (UK Parliament constituency)
Callington was a rotten borough in Cornwall which returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons in the English and later British Parliament from 1585 to 1832, when it was abolished by the Reform Act 1832.-History:...

, a rotten borough
Rotten borough
A "rotten", "decayed" or pocket borough was a parliamentary borough or constituency in the United Kingdom that had a very small electorate and could be used by a patron to gain undue and unrepresentative influence within Parliament....

, elected two members to the unreformed House of Commons
Unreformed House of Commons
The unreformed House of Commons is the name generally given to the British House of Commons as it existed before the Reform Act 1832.Until the Act of Union of 1707 joining the Kingdoms of Scotland and England , Scotland had its own Parliament, and the term refers to the House of Commons of England...

 but was abolished by the Reform Act 1832
Reform Act 1832
The Representation of the People Act 1832 was an Act of Parliament that introduced wide-ranging changes to the electoral system of England and Wales...

. The town is now in the South East Cornwall constituency.

St Mary's Church was originally a chapel of ease to South Hill
South Hill, Cornwall
South Hill is a civil parish and village in east Cornwall, United Kingdom.The parish church was consecrated in 1333 and apart from the upper stage of the tower and the south aisle is entirely of this date...

: it was consecrated in 1438 and had then two aisles and a buttressed tower, a second north aisle was added in 1882. Unusually for Cornwall there is a clerestory; the wagon roofs are old. The parish church contains the fine brass of Nicholas Assheton and his wife, 1466.

Development

In recent years, the town has seen much residential development with more, including social housing, planned for the next few years. The neighbouring village of Kelly Bray
Kelly Bray
Kelly Bray is a village in east Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated one mile north of Callington immediately east of Kit Hill in a former mining area. Kelly Bray is first recorded ca...

 has almost doubled in size in recent years with houses still being built in the area.

Twinning

Callington is twinned with Guipavas
Guipavas
Guipavas is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in north-western France.The city is divided into two major parts: the west, known as the dynamic core of the city and surburban area of Brest, where a new commercial centre opened in 2007, and the east, which is more traditional and...

 in Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...

, France, and also Barsbüttel
Barsbüttel
Barsbüttel is a municipality in the district of Stormarn, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is situated right east of Hamburg.Since 1973 the township consists of four parts: Barsbüttel , Willinghusen, Stemwarde and Stellau.-Twin towns:...

 near Hamburg in Germany.

See also

People from Callington
  • Dupath Well
    Dupath Well
    Dupath Well is a nearly intact wellhouse, constructed of local granite, built over a spring. Built of Cornish granite ashlar, it has a steeply-pitched roof, built from courses of granite slabs that run the length of the building. There are badly weathered pinnacles at each corner and a small bell...

  • East Cornwall Mineral Railway
    East Cornwall Mineral Railway
    The East Cornwall Mineral Railway was a narrow gauge industrial railway opened in 1872 to serve the iron ore and stone quarries around Callington in Cornwall....


External links

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