The Cott Inn
By the year 1113 the village of Dartington, along with the manor, had come in to the hands of the Fitz-Martin family. Around 1302 a public house was established on this site (though the building also has medieval stone rubble walls). It was first licensed in 1320 as the only pit-stop for wool traders on the packhorse route between Ashburton and Totnes. It was about this time that a wealthy Dartmouth merchant by the name of Johannes Cott began plying his trade, and in the same year (1320) he gave his name to the inn and adjoining hamlet, converting the original cottages into a trading post.
Before a bridge was built, traders would come from the north and cross the ford at Staverton, climb up to Dartington Hall and then down to what is now Shinner’s Bridge (at the bottom of this road). One of the two routes to the sea from here was past this Cott Inn and onwards down a road called Longcause and in to Totnes and the River Dart where goods would be loaded on to ships to sail to Dartmouth and then to the open sea. On 13th October 1333 Johannes Cott was made a freeman of Totnes.
Despite The Cott Inn suffering a bad fire in 1989 which damaged a large part of the roof, it has gone on to win several prestigious awards over the years, including “Overall Pub of the Year” and “Pub Garden of the Year “in 2024. And it is still the second oldest public house in the UK.
Images copyright Totnes Image Bank