Devon Holiday Guide

Description

Since time immemorial, deer have been drawn to graze in the sheltered meadows which line the banks of the river Dart in this Devonshire valley and quench their thirst in the cooling waters which flow here from high up on the moors and down towards the sea.

It may be that it was a favoured spot for these animals, and people who saw them thought to name the place for them ­ as Buckfast, since the name can mean a place where deer feel safe.

For nearly a thousand years, people have been drawn here, too. They have come to search for God. For God who is everywhere, certainly, but as they happened upon this place, they sensed that its beauty, its silence and tranquillity, its community of people who were similarly searching, made it a place where God might easily be found.