NORTH DEVON railway, a railway in North Devon; from a junction with the Exeter and Crediton at Crediton station, north-west-by-northward, to Barnstaple; with a branch to the docks at Fremington Pill, and with an extension from Barnstaple south-westward to Bideford. The main line was authorized, under the name of the Taw Vale, in 1838; branches to Bideford and to South Molton were authorized in 1847, but were not formed; the branch to Fremington Pill and the extension to Bideford were executed under separate authority, obtained in 1853; the system changed its name from the Taw Vale to the North Devon in 1851; the capital for it was reduced from £970, 666 to £441,001 in shares, with corresponding decrease in loans, in the same year; and the whole was leased to the Southwestern in 1863.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))