West Devon came together to remember the Queen at a civic church service held on the eve of her funeral.

The civic service for all was held at the Parish Church of St Eustachius in Tavistock on Sunday afternoon, bringing together local dignitaries and residents to pay their respects.

Archdeacon of Plymouth the Venerable Nick Shutt, leading the service, paid tribute to the UK’s longest serving monarch and all she had meant to people. Speaking from the pulpit, he pledged to be keep words to a minimum, saying ‘silence is often a more appropriate response’ in the face of such a loss.

He said: ‘As we gather together, the day before our Queen’s funeral, I am conscious of the tens of thousands of people who are still queuing to pay their respects, slowly winding their way through London parks, streets and bridges, such is the affection in which our Sovereign Lady is held. They want to pay their respects, and they do it in utter silence.’

‘When Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne in 1952 I was not born. That holds true for about 90 per cent of the people of these islands today. For those 90 per cent of us, we have known no other sovereign other than the Queen. She has been a constant whilst all around her have changed.’

The Commonwealth, something hugely important to the Queen, encompassing a third of the world’s population, has taken the place of Empire. There have been huge social, technological and economic changes. Through it all she had been the rock.

‘She has seen 15 Prime Ministers come and 14 of them go. She has met with archbishops, popes, presidents and leaders from all over the world, but she has also had time for ordinary folk as she pioneered royal walkabouts when she visited New Zealand in 1970. And they became a regular feature of her engagement with people. In the days since her death we have been reminded of the vows of service that she made and kept right to the end of her life.’

He spoke of how, at the age of just 21 in 1947, the Queen made a solemn vow to serve the people of the UK and the Empire, soon to become the Commonwealth. She kept those vows to the end.’

Underpinning her steadfastness, he said ‘was her vibrant personal Christian faith, a faith that she so often wove into her speeches, particularly when she addressed us at Christmas’.

He continued: ‘We share our memories of the Queen’s life knowing her funeral will be a solemn occasion when we will share a sense of loss but it will also be an occasion of hope because of our Queen’s faith.’

He asked people, as they recalled memories of the Queen ‘to hold in your prayers King Charles III as he takes on the mantle of King at a time of great uncertainty in the world’. He finished by saying ‘sometimes words to fail and silence is the biggest response anyone can make.’ Later that evening, some people across the borough observed a minute’s silence, and many watched her funeral on TV the following day.