Short answers, pulled from the story.
The name Devon preserves the memory of the Dumnonii, a Celtic tribe whose identity meant deep valley dwellers. This ancient people inhabited the southwestern peninsula of Britain long before the Roman legions marched north, and their language left an indelible mark on the landscape that persists to this day.
The border with Cornwall was not fixed until the 936 AD, when King Aethelstan set the boundary at the east bank of the River Tamar. This frontier has remained largely unchanged for over a millennium.
The Devonian period spans from approximately 395 to 359 million years ago and is named by geologists Roderick Murchison and Adam Sedgwick in the 1840s. This era is the only British county whose name is used worldwide as the basis for a geological time period.
The county's patron saint is Saint Boniface, who was officially recognised in 2019. Saint Petroc is also said to have passed through Devon, where ancient dedications to him are even more numerous than in Cornwall.
In 2019, the total economic output of Devon was over 26 billion pounds, a figure larger than either Manchester or Edinburgh. Visitor spend reached almost 2.5 billion pounds in 2019, demonstrating the county's significant economic power.
In January 2024, plans were announced to plant over 100,000 trees in northern Devon to support Celtic rainforests. The project aims to create 50 hectares of new rainforest across three sites, planting trees near existing rainforest areas along the coast and inland.