The Charter of Totnes was dated 1205, the mayor claiming precedence over the Lord Mayor of London, for Totnes, if not the oldest, was one of the oldest boroughs in England.  It was therefore not to be wondered at that the Corporation possessed many curios:  amongst them were the original ring to which the bull was fastened when bull-baiting formed one of the pastimes in England; a very ancient wooden chest; the staves used by the constables in past generations; a curious arm-chair used by the town clerk; a list of mayors from the year 1377 to the present time; two original proclamations by Oliver Cromwell; many old placards of important events; an exceptionally fine fourteenth-century frieze; a water-pipe formed out of the trunk of an elm tree; the old stocks; and an engraving representing the arrival of William of Orange at Brixham.

There was a church at Totnes in the time of the Conquest, for it was mentioned in a charter by which “Judhel de Totnais,” the Norman Baron to whom the Conqueror gave the borough, granted the “Ecclesiam Sancte Marie de Toteneo” to the Benedictine Abbey at Angers; but the present church was built in 1432 by Bishop Lacy, who granted a forty-days’ indulgence for all who contributed to the work.  His figure and coat-of-arms were still to be seen on the church tower, which was 120 feet high, with the words in raised stone letters, “I made the Tour.”  There was also a figure of St. Loe, the patron Saint of artificers in brass and iron, who was shown in the act of shoeing a horse.  The corporation appeared to have had control of the church, and in 1450 had erected the altar screen, which was perhaps the most striking object there, for after the restoration, which was in progress at the time of our visit, of nine stone screens in Devon churches, excepting that in Exeter Cathedral, it claimed to be the most beautiful.

In the church there was also an elaborate brass candelabrum for eighteen lights with this suitable inscription: 

Thy Word is a Lantern to my Feet
And a light unto my Path.
Donum Dei et Deo
17th May 1701.

The corporation has also some property in the church in the shape of elaborately carved stalls erected in 1636; also an ancient Bible and Prayer Book handsomely bound for the use of the mayor, and presented April 12th, 1690, by the Honble.  Lady Anne Seymour of Berry Pomeroy Castle, whose autograph the books contain; and in the Parvise Chamber attached to the church there were about 300 old books dating from 1518 to 1676, one a copy of Sir Walter Raleigh’s History of the World, published in 1634.

The carved stone pulpit, of the same date as the screen, had at one time been divided into Gothic panels, on which were shields designed to represent the twelve sons of Israel:  Judah was represented by a lion couchant, Zebulon by a ship under sail, Issachar as a laden ass resting, and Dan as a serpent coiled with head erect, and so on according to the description given of each of the sons in the forty-ninth chapter of Genesis.