North Tawton 600 ft (185m) east-west by 390 ft (120m), and was located adjoining the Roman road between "Isca Dumnoniorum" (Exeter) and Okehampton. In addition, the site of a temporary marching camp has been identified half a mile to the north. By the time of the Domesday survey (1086), there were six farm / manor holdings in what is now North Tawton Parish, including that of Tawton which was the forerunner of the town we know today. St Peter's Church is first recorded in 1257. Only the tower of the present building dates from that time, with the rest being mostly 14th
Celtic language decline in England England begin to be attested from around 670, pre-eminently in Anglo-Saxon charters; they have been intensively surveyed by the English and Scottish Place-Name Societies. Except in Cornwall, the vast majority of place-names in England are easily etymologised as Old English (or Old Norse, due to later Viking influence), demonstrating the dominance of English across post-Roman England. This has traditionally been seen as evidence for a cataclysmic cultural and demographic shift at the end of the Roman period, in which not only the Brittonic and Latin languages, but also Brittonic and Latin place-names, and even Brittonic- and Latin-speakers, were swept away.