Avonwick is a village in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

North Huish North Huish is a village, civil parishes in England, civil parish, former ecclesiastical parish and former Manorialism, manor in the South Hams district of Devon, England. The village is situated about south-west of the town of Totnes. Avonwick ...

, in the

South Hams South Hams is a non-metropolitan district, local government district on the south coast of Devon, England. Its council is based in the town of Totnes, although the largest town is Ivybridge. The district also contains the towns of Dartmouth, ...

district, in the county of

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

, England. The River Avon runs through the settlement and the village's name derives from ''avon'' meaning ''river'', and ''wick'' an old word for ''village'',St James' Church Avonwick on the Society of Cornishes website
/ref> but it was not so named until the 1870s, previously being known as Newhouse. Avonwick has about 120 houses in the main village and has rapidly grown in size over the last few years, with three developments adding 17 houses in the late 1990s, 7 houses in 2000 and 33 houses in 2012. The village church, dedicated to St James in 1878, is one of only a few

proprietary chapel A proprietary chapel is a chapel that originally belonged to a private person, but with the intention that it would be open to the public, rather than restricted (as with private chapels in the stricter sense) to members of a family or household, ...

s remaining in the country. The village also has a pub, one of the oldest lawn tennis clubs in the world/ Avon Vale Tennis and Croquet Club
and a garage, with a further restaurant on the road to South Brent.The Turtley Corn Mill
/ref> The village had a succession of shops from 1871, but the last village shop closed in 2018. The village has one of the oldest walkways in Devon: known as the Cobbly Way or Cobbly Walk, the cobbled track alongside the river shows traces of ancient cart ruts over its 400-yard length. Avonwick railway station opened about outside the village in 1893, on the branch line between South Brent and

Kingsbridge Kingsbridge is a market town in the South Hams district of Devon, England, with a population of 6,116 at the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 census. Two electoral wards bear the name of ''Kingsbridge'' (East & North). Their combined population ...

. The station and line closed in 1963.

References

Villages in South Hams {{Devon-geo-stub