Editing Barnstaple (section)

==Governance==
{{Infobox legislature|background_color=#f3d42a|name=Barnstaple Town Council|logo_pic=File:Barnstaple Town Council logo.png|house_type=Civil parish|leader1=Janet Coates|leader1_type=Mayor|party1=[[Liberal Democrats (UK)|Liberal Democrats]]|leader2=Joanna Orange|leader2_type=Deputy Mayor|party2=[[Liberal Democrats (UK)|Liberal Democrats]]|structure1=Barnstaple Town Council political make up.svg|political_groups1={{legend|{{party colour|Liberal Democrats (UK)}}|[[Liberal Democrats (UK)|Liberal Democrats]] (22)}} {{legend|{{party colour|Labour Party (UK)}}|[[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] (1)}}|salary=None|seats=23|voting_system1=[[First-past-the-post voting|First-past-the-post]]|session_room=Barnstaple Guildhall from south.jpg|meeting_place=[[Guildhall, Barnstaple|Guildhall]], Butchers Row, Barnstaple, EX31{{nbsp}}1BW|session_room2=Barum House.jpg|meeting_place2=Barum House, The Square, Barnstaple, EX32{{nbsp}}8LS|website={{url|https://barnstapletowncouncil.gov.uk/}}}}

There are three tiers of local government covering Barnstaple, at [[civil parish|parish]] (town), [[non-metropolitan district|district]] and [[non-metropolitan county|county]] level: Barnstaple Town Council, [[North Devon Council]] (based just outside Barnstaple) and [[Devon County Council]] (based in [[Exeter]]). Barnstaple Town Council meets at the [[Guildhall, Barnstaple|Guildhall]] on High Street and has its offices at Barum House on The Square.<ref>{{cite web |title=Barnstaple Town Council |url=https://www.barnstapletowncouncil.gov.uk/ |access-date=8 August 2023}}</ref>

===Administrative history===
Barnstaple was an [[ancient borough]]. Its early status as a borough was ambiguous; in 1340 the town's guild claimed it had been incorporated in 930 by [[Æthelstan|King Athelstan]] in a charter which had since been lost.<ref>{{cite web |title=History of Barnstaple |url=https://www.barnstaplehistorygroup.com/history-of-barnstaple |website=Barnstaple History Group |access-date=10 August 2023}}</ref><ref name=Woodger/> The town was described as a borough in the [[Domesday Book]] of 1086,<ref>{{cite web |title=Barnstaple |url=https://opendomesday.org/place/SS5533/barnstaple/ |website=Open Domesday |access-date=10 August 2023}}</ref> and from at least 1210 the town was being run by a guild which appointed a mayor. The claim in 1340 was made as part of a petition to [[Edward III of England|Edward III]] seeking a new charter with additional powers. This was resisted by the lord of the [[feudal barony of Barnstaple]]. Following an inquisition [[ad quod damnum]] it was ruled that the town was in fact a lower status [[Mesne lord|mesne borough]] answerable to the lord, rather than a free borough responsible directly to the monarch. The mayor was therefore not recognised as such by the monarch, but was deemed to be merely a [[bailiff]] of the lord. The guild made several other unsuccessful attempts to secure a charter from the king throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, including seeking confirmation of rights supposedly conferred by charters from [[Henry II of England|Henry II]] and subsequent monarchs, but those charters were forgeries, copied from [[Exeter|Exeter's]] charters.<ref name=Woodger>{{cite book |last1=Woodger |first1=L. S. |title=The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386–1421 |date=1993 |url=http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/constituencies/barnstaple#constituency-main-article |access-date=10 August 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Kowaleski |first=Maryanne |editor=Michael Duffy| title=The New Maritime History of Devon Volume 1. From early times to the late eighteenth century |publisher=Conway Maritime Press |location=London |year=1992 |chapter=The Port Towns of Fourteenth-Century Devon |page=64 |isbn=0-85177-611-6 |display-editors=etal}}</ref>

The town eventually secured a charter of incorporation from [[Mary I of England|Mary I]] in 1557.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Venning |first1=Tim |last2=Ferris |first2=John P. |last3=Hunneyball |first3=Paul |title=The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604–1629 |date=2010 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |url=https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/constituencies/barnstaple |access-date=10 August 2023}}</ref> The council built the Guildhall on High Street in 1828 to serve as its meeting place.<ref name=EHLB>{{NHLE|num=1385188|desc=The Guildhall, Barnstaple|accessdate=25 August 2019}}</ref><ref>W. Bruce Oliver, ''Barnstaple Borough'', Transactions of the Devon Association, vol. 62, (1930) pp. 269–273.</ref> It was reformed to become a [[municipal borough]] in 1836, governed by a corporate body officially called the "mayor, aldermen and burgesses of the borough of Barnstaple", but generally known as the corporation or town council. The borough boundaries, which had previously been identical to the parish of Barnstaple, were enlarged at the same time to include part of the parish of [[Pilton, Devon|Pilton]] (including the village itself) and the [[Newport, Devon|Newport]] area from the parish of [[Bishop's Tawton]].<ref>Pilton and Newport had been added to the parliamentary borough (constituency) under the [[Parliamentary Boundaries Act 1832]], and the [[Municipal Corporations Act 1835]] directed that from 1 January 1836 the municipal borough was to have the same boundaries as the constituency.</ref> The borough was further enlarged in 1899 to take in the Rolle's Quay area from Pilton and an area on the west bank of the River Taw (including [[Barnstaple Junction railway station]]) which had previously been in the parish of [[Tawstock]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Annual Report of the Local Government Board |date=1900 |location=London |page=312 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7xEMAQAAMAAJ |access-date=10 August 2023}}</ref>

The town council moved its offices to Castle House in the grounds of the castle in 1927, which in turn was replaced by a new Civic Centre on North Walk in 1969.<ref>Information board in grounds of Barnstaple Castle.</ref> The borough of Barnstaple was abolished in 1974 under the [[Local Government Act 1972]], with the area merging with [[Barnstaple Rural District]], [[South Molton Rural District]] and the [[Urban district (England and Wales)|urban districts]] of [[Ilfracombe]] and [[Lynton]] to become the new district of North Devon. A [[successor parish]] was created covering the area of the former borough, with its council taking the name Barnstaple Town Council.<ref>{{cite legislation UK|type=si|si=The Local Government (Successor Parishes) (No. 2) Order 1973|year=1973|number=1939|access-date=10 August 2023}}</ref><ref name="Barnstaple History Website">{{Cite web |url=http://www.barnstaple-history.co.uk/barnstaple_town_council.htm |title=Barnstaple Town Council |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010125055200/http://www.barnstaple-history.co.uk/barnstaple_town_council.htm |archive-date=25 January 2001}}</ref> The Civic Centre passed to North Devon Council, whilst the town council was initially based at the Guildhall.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=52083|page=6798|date=22 March 1990}}</ref> In 1993 the town council acquired Barum House on The Square to serve as its offices, but continues to use the Guildhall for meetings.<ref>{{cite web |title=Planning application 52916 |url=https://planning.northdevon.gov.uk/Planning/Display/52916 |website=North Devon Council |access-date=10 August 2023}} Design and Access Statement: "Barum House... has been a private house and a dentist's surgery, before being purchased by Barnstaple Town Council in 1993."</ref>

===Parliamentary status===
From 1295 the [[Barnstaple (UK Parliament constituency)|Borough of Barnstaple]] had two members in the [[British House of Commons|House of Commons]] until 1885, when this was reduced to one. The constituency was replaced for the [[1950 United Kingdom general election|1950 general election]] by the large modern constituency of [[North Devon (UK Parliament constituency)|North Devon]], held by [[Nick Harvey]] MP of the [[Liberal Democrats (UK)|Liberal Democrats]] from 1992 until 2015, when [[Peter Heaton-Jones]] of the Conservative Party was elected and re-elected in 2017. Between 2019 and 2024 the MP was the Conservative [[Selaine Saxby]]. Since 2024 the MP has been the Liberal Democrat [[Ian Roome]].