Map - Kingsbridge

Kingsbridge is a market town and tourist hub 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 six miles south of the town. It is the third largest settlement in the South Hams and is 17 miles (27 km) southwest of Torquay and 17 miles (27 km) southeast of Plymouth.

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.

Kingsbridge is in fact a combination of two towns, Kingsbridge and Dodbrooke. Dodbrooke was granted its own market in 1257 and had become a borough by 1319. While Dodbrooke was originally considered to be the dominant of the two, Kingsbridge later expanded to include it. The town consists of two ecclesiastical parishes: St. Edmund's in the west and St. Thomas Becket at Dodbrooke in the east. St. Edmund's Church, in mainly Perpendicular style, retains some 13th-century features including a font, but was enlarged and reconsecrated around 1414 and was mostly rebuilt in the 19th century. The parish church of St. Thomas Becket displays a particularly well-preserved rood screen, restored in 1897.

In 1798 the town mills were converted into a woollen manufactory, which produced large quantities of cloth, and serge manufacture was introduced early in the 19th century. During the 19th century the town had an active coastal shipping trade, shipbuilding, a tannery, other industries and a large monthly cattle market. The chief exports were cider, corn, malt, and slate.

Kingsbridge was used by Anthony Trollope as the setting for his novel Rachel Ray (1863) and by Rachel Joyce as the setting for her 2012 novel The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. In October 2021 Embankment Films started filming in Kingsbridge for the big screen version of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, starring Jim Broadbent, Penelope Wilton, Monika Gossmann and Bethan Cullinane. The film is due to be released in 2022.

The town centre retains many 18th and 19th century buildings. The Shambles, or market arcade, was rebuilt in 1796 but retains its 16th century granite piers. The former grammar school, now a museum, was founded and built by Thomas Crispin in 1670.