Brent-Tor or Brentor a parish in Devonshire, on the river Lyd, 2 miles from Lidford station on the G.W.R. and L. & S.W.R. In 1879 the hamlets of North and South Brentor and West Black Down, formerly part of St Mary Tavy parish, were added to this parish for ecclesiastical purposes. Post town, Bridestowe; money order office, Tavistock ; telegraph office, Lydford railway station. Acreage, 3363; population of the civil parish, 476; of the ecclesiastical, 575. The manor belonged formerly to the abbey of Tavistock, and belongs now to the Duke of Bedford. A remarkable eminence here, bearing the same name as the parish, starts abruptly from an elevated down, has an altitude of 1100 feet, is seen at a great distance, and serves as a mark for vessels entering Plymouth harbour. Its form is conical, its surface rocky, and its mineral structure a subject of much discussion among geologists. A mine of manganese was long worked, but has been abandoned. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Exeter; gross value, £235 with residence. Patron, the Duke of Bedford. The church surmounts a precipice on the crown of the Tor, is a curious weather-worn structure 37 feet by 14 1/2, and is said to have been built by a merchant who, overtaken by a storm at sea, vowed to erect a church on the first point of land he saw.
