Kingsbridge

Kingsbridge is a market town in the South Hams district of Devon, England, with a population of 6,116 at the 2011 census. Two electoral wards bear the name of Kingsbridge (East & North). Their combined population at the above census was 4,381. It is situated at the northern end of the Kingsbridge Estuary, a ria that extends to the sea south of the town. It is the third largest settlement in the South Hams and is southwest of Torquay and southeast of Plymouth.

==History== thumb|right|Clock on the old Kingsbridge Town Hall building The town formed around a bridge which was built in or before the 10th century between the royal estates of Alvington, to the west, and Chillington, to the east, hence giving it the name of Kyngysbrygge ("King's bridge"). In 1219 the Abbot of Buckfast was granted the right to hold a market there, and by 1238 the settlement had become a borough. The manor remained in possession of the abbot until the Dissolution of the Monasteries, when it was granted to Sir William Petre. Kingsbridge was never represented in Parliament or incorporated by charter, the local government being by a portreeve. It lay within the hundred of Stanborough.