In the street we have named, near the beautiful old Eastgate, which stands half-way up its steeply climbing roadway, are some of the most architecturally interesting houses of the town. Merchants’ palaces of the time when Totnes was completely environed by its walls, and “its inhabitants, even in times of trouble, could sleep at ease because of its strong defences.” It is from the old Norman keep, built, so ’tis said, by Judhael de Totenais, that one obtains what local folk proudly assert is the finest view in Devon. From it (let the claim pass unchallenged) one does see a prospect of delight, widely stretching and cultivated fields and uplands, with distant plum-hued Dartmoor on the far horizon to the northward. To the south and in front of the lower town is the beautiful reach of the river up which in ancient times came the returned vessels from distant lands, richly laden with the spoil of commerce or pillage which made the Totnes merchants, if not “rich beyond the dreams of avarice,” yet wealthy amongst their peers. But Totnes of to-day knows little of sea-borne commerce, and is mainly given over to the pursuits of a country town of somewhat indifferent enterprise, with the sole excitements afforded by recurring market days, and the gossip of the incoming folk from the district round about. A sharp enough contrast to the stirring days of old when excitement and adventurous life was the distinguishing feature, and “none could tell what each tide would bring up from the sea. News of loss or gain, of returned or missing ships, of wealth for prosperous merchants or disaster which might make the richest of them poor.” In the ancient Parish Church of St Mary one has an interesting building dating from the fifteenth century, replacing a thirteenth century edifice which in turn stood on the site of a much earlier Norman church. The beautifully carved screen (said by some authorities to be the finest in Devon), and the registers which date from the middle of the sixteenth century, and contain an astonishing amount of most interesting information regarding the old merchant princes of the Elizabethan and succeeding periods give St Mary’s Church an unusual attractiveness for antiquarians and students.