Brentor Community Trust to be wound up

John Wheeler and Mike Whitfield, long standing trustees of the Brentor Community Trust, announced their retirement in 2021.  A plea for volunteers to take their places yielded no response and so, rather than see it disappear, Brentor Parish Council has stepped in to oversee the continued running of the Trust.

On behalf of all residents of Brentor past and present, the Parish Council would like to thank John and Mike and other past trustees for their hard work in providing such an important community resource.

Brentor News will, from the beginning of 2022, cease in its current form and village news, events, information etc will ONLY be available online via the village website.
The decision to stop creating a separate, printed newsletter has been made for a number of reasons …the ability of people to access it online, cost saving and the time/money/environmental impact of those volunteers who deliver the newsletter in its current form.

It is hoped that in the future, with help from additional technology, the Brentor Living Archive, which was also run by the Brentor Community Trust, will be incorporated into the website.


The Brentor Community Trust is a charitable trust whose roots go back to 1978, following a severe blizzard during which the village was cut off for four days.  Until October 2021 the Trust was run as a private charity, but now it has been taken under the wing of Brentor Parish Council.  This is because no villagers came forward to replace the Trustees who were retiring after so many years of service.

The History of the Trust
A group of villagers founded the ‘Brentor Community Centre’ in August 1978 whose aims were:
(i)   ‘to support and promote activities which contribute to the community good in Brentor.
(ii)   to publish a monthly newsletter (Brentor News) on a non-profit making basis and to distribute it to all households in Brentor for the benefit of the community’
A Village Shop run entirely by volunteers was established, soon to be followed by a pre-school playgroup and a youth club. Changes in the village in the intervening years altered the activities organised by the ‘Brentor Community Centre’ and it was converted into a charitable trust (‘The Brentor Community Trust’) in May 2008.

The aim of the Trust is ‘to promote and support activities which enhance education, communication and social interaction for the benefit of the community of the parish of Brentor and surrounding areas in West Devon’.

The Trust has been responsible for:

Brentor News
Brentor News was first published in November 1979. It was circulated monthly without fail and free of charge to most households in the village ever since then.
Click here to see current and back issues.

Brentor Village Website
This website was mooted at a meeting of interested Brentor Parish residents in August 2008, and went live in April 2009 after a development period involving at least ten Brentor ‘contributing editors’, each of whom wrote articles about their particular interests or responsibilities, supported by a general editor and a web development specialist, all residents of Brentor.
Click here to find out more.

Brentor Living Archive
The Brentor Archive Group was established under the auspices of the Brentor Community Centre in 2001 and an agreed constitution was adopted in 2003. Its main activity is to establish The Brentor Living Archive which will involve the community in exploring the history of Brentor and appreciating the continuing relevance of this evolving story to contemporary village life. The group works through personal contact and individual research, and has brought together more than 800 items (photographs, documents, notes) relating to the social history of Brentor.
Click here to find out more.