Tavistock

Once a year the world comes to Tavistock for the World Crokinole Championship. The rest of the year it's a tidy German-heritage village in the middle of dairy country. Tavistock sits on Oxford Road 59 in the north of East Zorra-Tavistock, about 15 km south-east of Stratford. Queen's Park on Maria Street, opened in 1928, has about 20 hectares of parkland behind stone gates, and the village is home to the Tavistock Braves junior hockey team and the Tavistock Royals senior team.

Captain Henry Eckstein founded Tavistock in 1848, and a stone cairn on Woodstock Street South honours him. Before the village, Caister's Tavern, a log house built in 1836, was the only public accommodation for travellers heading from the Huron Road into the Zorra settlement. Tavistock was a village of its own until 1975, when it joined East Zorra Township to form East Zorra-Tavistock. The World Crokinole Championship came to Tavistock in 1999 because the village is close to Sebastopol, home of Eckhardt Wettlaufer, who made the earliest known crokinole board.

The census counts most of Tavistock in areas of its own, so these figures are close to the village line. They come to about 1,280 homes, about three in four of them single detached houses and about one in five in small apartment buildings. Nearly a third were built in 1960 or earlier and about one in six between 1961 and 1980. About one in five were built between 1981 and 2000, about one in seven between 2001 and 2015, and about one in seven between 2016 and 2021.

Oxford Road 59 runs through Tavistock, north toward Shakespeare and south to Woodstock City Hall, about 23 km away by road, a drive of about 25 minutes. Stratford City Hall is about 17 km away, a drive of about 18 minutes.

Queen's Park on Maria Street, established in 1928 behind stone gates paid for by the Women's Institute, has about 20 hectares of parkland with a ball diamond, a pavilion and a playground. The Optimist Club of Tavistock Park on Oxford Road 59 covers another 4.5 hectares. The Tavistock and District Recreation Centre and Tavistock Memorial Hall, whose main hall seats 320, are the village's arena and halls, and the Tavistock branch of the Oxford County Library is at 40 Woodstock Street South.

• Tavistock Public School — JK to Grade 8. The public school for most of Tavistock, on Maria Street.
• Hickson Central Public School — JK to Grade 8. The public school for the south end, including Woodstock Street South, in Hickson.
• Woodstock Collegiate Institute — Grades 9 to 12. The public secondary school for Tavistock, on Riddell Street in Woodstock, and Woodstock's public French immersion secondary school.
• Roch Carrier French Immersion Public School — Grades 1 to 8 in French immersion. The public French immersion school for Tavistock, on Sloane Street in Woodstock.