Barnstaple as a whole (94.2% White British). Barnstaple has a similar ethnic make-up compared with other south west towns, like Truro and Cullompton. North Devon is some distance from the UK's traditional areas of industrial activity and population. In the late 1970s Barnstaple gained a number of industrial companies due to the availability of central government grants for the construction of factories and their operation on low or zero levels of local taxation. This was only partially successful, with few of these lasting more than the few years that grants were available. One success was the manufacturing of generic medicines by
Barnstaple Priory town of Barnstaple, and today the parish church, and the Chapel of St Sabinus, which is not identifiable today but which may have been located in the crypt of the surviving St Anne's Chapel, next to the parish church. Juhel stated in his foundation charter that he intended himself to enter the priory as a monk and hoped "quickly to pass to the glory of my maker". Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries the priory was leased by King Henry VIII, later granted absolutely, to William Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham(c. 1510-1573), the eldest son of Thomas Howard, 2nd