Gallery
A visit to Bere Alston
18 members & friends defied the summer showers & were rewarded with a fascinating exploration of this historic mining community. Trevor Bond & his local history society guided us around the village streets reminding us about life in the area both past & present.
Taking its name from its original Anglo Saxon owner, roughly meaning farm on the peninsular, the village was particularly active from the late 13th century through to late 19th. This was after the discovery of silver & then lead which resulted in a huge mining boom & an influx of workers from Cornwall. Tamar Valley fruit & flowers were also an important source of income & the adjacent railway was an ideal form of transport & communication.
The village has seen a huge increase in new housing in recent times & is still continuing to grow. It is still well served by shops, including butcher, post office, Co-Op, estate agents, bookshop, pub & fish/ chips - though this is a far cry from earlier days when there were around 32 shops & 9 pubs (for the thirsty miners ?)
Of particular interest now is the fascinating village Mosaic Map, the Square with its old miners cottages & old wheelwrights workshop, & the running tap on "Tap Hill" . There are many other areas of interest however, the histories of which were brought splendidly to life by Trevor & his companions. The evening was rounded off by refreshments in the Holy Trinity church hall, with a display of archive articles & photographs.
The village is also on the Tamar Valley Discovery Trail & there is a particularly useful leaflet available locally which will enhance any visit to the area.
Songs of the West - the songs of the Rev'd Sabine Baring-Gould
Local history met folk in a musical evening performed by the Wren Trust. Paul & Marilyn from the Trust entertained another large audience with a potted history of the famous , & some thought eccentric, squire & parson from Lewtrenchard & a rendering of some of his songs - even the members were singing by the end!
SBG was born in Exeter but moved to Lewtrenchard Manor in 1881. During his lifetime (1834-1924), he found time to father 15 children , renovate his house, travel extensively around Europe, write many novels including the Red Spider, plus pamphlets & magazine articles, collect & publish his famous Songs of the West & research other folklore & songs.... & even found time to re-erect fallen stones on the Moor. Altogether, he deposited a collection of over 200 such songs from the period 1600 to the 1900's with Plymouth University, but also collected a further 650 more on top of these.
He is probably best known for the song "Onward Christian Soldiers" but he re-discovered many other favourites including Widecombe Fayre, Rosemary Lane, Green Broom, Strawberry Fair & Devon Bellringing, plus the Death of Parker & Captain Ward (well known pirates). Paul & Marilyn used the concertina, guitar, accordion & the fiddle to good effect in re-creating the great man's work.
Later in his life, he organised concerts to raise money for not so well-off singers, in so doing he did "tidy up" some of the songs to make them more commercially acceptable. He died & is buried in Lewtrenchard, but thanks to organisations like the Wren Trust (now in its 25th anniversary year), his legacy will live on for future generations to enjoy.
Dartmoor leats & waterways
Len Copley entertained another large audience......no details to hand on this one I'm afraid. Your chairman was away in the Lake District & no-one else took notes....apologies. Here's a nice photo anyway........
Courtesy of Dotphoto
The Templer Way
Mike Perriam returned with one of his favourite talks regarding the 18 mile tramway & canal linking the quarries around Haytor with the port of Teignmouth.
The name is taken from the Templer family, James starting it off in the 18th century. After running away to sea at an early age & making himself successful & wealthy in India, he returned to Devon & bought the Stover Estate in 1765, building Stover House using stone from the nearby Haytor quarries. His son , also a James, subsequently built the canal to transport ball clay from the Bovey basin to the docks, replacing the expensive & laborious packhorse routes.
His son George then took over the estate in the early 1800's & started to develop the granite quarries, leading to the construction of the tramway which opened in 1820. Unfortunately George was more interested in in the arts & his sporting pursuits rather than business matters & the estate was soon sold on to the Duke of Somerset. The canal then became very successful from the transport of both granite & clay through till the mid 1800's, the granite quarries closing finally in 1860. The clay trade continued right up until 1939 when use of the canal ended & road transport took over.
Mike's talk digressed to scenes of Lake Havusu in the Arizona desert of the US where London Bridge now resides, built mainly of the granite from Haytor quarries. Mike's talk was an inspiration for all to walk the Templer Way starting from the quarries of Haytor & Holwell, tracing its route along the old tramway, through the Stover estate beside the canal, all the way to Teignmouth.
The Dartmoor Village
Jenny Sanders continued our new programme to a packed hall with a fascinating look at several local villages, tracking their development & changes over the period 1801 to present day. Several villages were compared including Walkhampton, Whitchurch, Peter Tavy, Lydford, Holne & South Zeal, looking at key facilities such as transport links, pubs, post office & shops, churches, village halls & activities such as fairs & traditions.
Another interesting aspect was the population change, which in most cases showed an amazing similarity between the beginning & end of the 200 year period, apart from an increase in Walkhampton. Several villages showed increases in the intervening period mainly due to the influx of miners, but then have reduced since.
Amongst the various facilities that have disappeared have been the well publicised village post office & shop, railway links, some schools, garage/ petrol stations, & the silver mint at Lydford! Bucking the trend, Holne has recently opened a new shop run by the community & there is still a thriving shop & post office in Whitchurch.
On another positive side, the village hall now seems to be a driving force in community life, with all sorts of sporting & leisure time activities taking place. Many of the schools are still thriving & village fairs & festivals (particularly the folk festival in South Zeal) still draw in the crowds.
Lively discussion continued at the end of Jenny's talk and despite the sometimes gloomy news that we hear about our villages & the changes taking place , there remains a confidence that they do remain great places to live.
Tavistock Canal
Our 2008 programme kicked off with Brian Woods and his unique interactive walk along the 4.5 mile route of the historic canal, via his cleverly woven digital photographs and laptop.
The brainchild of the mining engineer John Taylor, the first part of the canal was opened in 1805 to carry minerals from Tavistock to Morwellham. Brian carefully picked his way along its route from its take off on the River Tavy, singling out special points of interest and history, such as the high level aqueduct, built to span the Lumburn valley.
Brian dwelled for a while in the 1.5 mile long tunnel under Morwelldown, explaining that this had been an extremely difficult construction which took another 13 years to complete. He talked about the associated mining in the vicinity, pointing out the minerals and their dramatic colours in the rock, and how little clearance there was for the original boats - little of which is known. Finally he dropped down the incline plane to the quay on the River Tamar, though the canal itself still feeds into the hydro-electric power plant nearby.
Brian's wintry walk in the comfort of the Meavy Hall was a good way to start the year. This can now be enhanced by physically exploring the route itself (apart from the tunnel). We will also be visiting Morwellham itself in one of our future events.
Events from our 2007 programme included...............
The End of an Era - Tin mining on Dartmoor 1900-1975
Dr Tom Greeves recounted through stories & photographs the lives of the miners in the last century. He had previously met many of the miners who had worked in places such as Hexworthy, Golden Dagger, Vitifer, Owlacombe & the Mary/ Peter Tavy areas.
Tom had been lucky enough to visit these mine areas with the old miners & learn about their working lives. Conditions were tough in the early 1900's, with no electricity & shafts lit by helmet candles. The miners would often walk out to their places of work from Tavistock & spend a week at the mines. Vitifer mine in particular, near the Warren House Inn, was large with deep shafts & closed once but then re-opened with more modern machinery. There was a complex of buildings including the captain's house, bunkhouse, kitchen & cottages for the miners' families.
Copper, tin & arsenic formed the main output with varying degrees of success & profitability, the mines often closing & reopening on different scales of production each time. There was however a great spirit of togetherness amongst the workers themselves. Owlacombe mine was operated for a while from 1906 by an experienced South African engineer, but again struggled to make a profit.
Tom's excellent images brought back to members the harsh reality of this industry, less than 100 years ago.
Personal Memories of Yelverton
Dave German, founder chairman of the society, returned from deepest Cornwall to share his special memories of growing up in Yelverton & the neighbouring area. With the help of his impressive collection of historical slides, Dave fondly recounted the times spent with his grandparents in Yelverton Dairies, & the businesses of Pipers Ice Cream & Barretts in Moorland Villas & the Corner Shop owned by his parents at Leg O'Mutton.
He recalled moving houses on numerous occasions including a spell at Huccaby House, the previous home of a certain Robert Burnard. His slide journey took us along old railways, including personal memories of riding on the turntable; along old tollroads, leats & moorland tracks. Scenes of sports days & meetings of the hunt & pony shows depicted life on the Green before modern roads & roundabouts destroyed nearly all trace of lively days in the village centre.
The wartime airfield of Harrowbeer had changed the face of Moorland Villas & Dave recounted stories of the people who came to Yelverton for the health benefits & built beautiful houses, many of which still exist today.
Dave's talk was rich in his own memories not just of places, but the characters that he knew & was also memorable for his typically informal story telling & his images of past life in our area. We encourage more of our members to come forward with their own pictures & stories.
Trekkers badges & certificates were perhaps the order of the day when 21 members & friends finished exploring some of the abandoned farms & mines in the area of
Starting at the remains of Bal Mine & its cunningly concealed whinstone beside the carpark, we moved onto Middleworth. Remains of the fine barn still stand with some traces of the farm, vacated in 1919 like 28 others in the area following the building of Burrator reservoir & concerns over pollution. Further along the track, we passed East & West Deancombe farms & the old tin mine adit. Plenty to see here, including the staddles which used to support hayricks.
The remains of Outholme tin mine required some effort to reach, with a fast flowing stream, stiles & undergrowth slowing our progress. Worth it though to see a neat line of mortar stones beside the track plus the wheel pit, tail race & furnace. With the light fading & the midges turning up their venom, we returned along the edge of the woods & through the arboretum. Our guide went awol here, but the more intrepid members found the direct route first back to the carpark.
Harrowbeer Airfield visit
Over 20 members of the society, accompanied along the way by Pippa Quelch from Radio Devon, were treated to a thorough exploration of the old World War 11 site by expert guides from the Harrowbeer Interest Group (HIG), with the storm clouds staying just out of the way this time (after last year’s washout).
Splitting off into 3 smaller groups, we spent over 2 fascinating hours visiting the site of the old airfield which was operational between 1941- 46 , looking at the extensive remains of the old runways (built out of rubble from the blitz of Plymouth) , & numerous buildings including the control tower, blast bays, gun batteries, storage hangars, bomb, parachute & fuel stores. Various photographs were shown to us of the aircraft such as Spitfires & Typhoons & their squadron crews & a surprise VIP visitor diverted here (after the war had finished!) due to fog - the US President Harry Truman. We listened to stories of derring-do about Czech & Polish pilots & unfortunate fatalities too.
Afterwards, members retreated to the Knightstone tearooms (the original control tower) for refreshments, courtesy of Mike Hayes, who then opened up the museum in his garage, which is also full of fascinating artefacts, collected or sent in by ex-pilots & members of the public.
The visit was subsequently featured on Radio Devon, including interviews with our chairman & members of HIG. For further articles of interest on this topic, see copies of our Society's journals nos. 21 & 22.
Many thanks to the members of HIG who have a superb website at www.rafharrowbeer.co.uk & are holding another of their open weekends at the end of August.
Higher Dittisham
22 members and friends enjoyed the sunshine on their visit to this restored Dartmoor longhouse, near Walkhampton. Tim and Kay Miall were excellent hosts, providing an extensive tour of the house & outbuildings. After gaining of Grade 2 listed status for the building in the early 1990's , Tim & Kay, who were then living next door in the Victorian farmhouse, painstakingly & lovingly restored the former Devonmoor Pets Hotel to its original glory.
A farm is first mentioned on the site in records going back to the 13th century. A previous modernisation phase carried out in 1663 had produced the unusual 'L' shaped design , caused by the steep & rocky slope, & in the latest stage of restoration tons of earth & "modifications" were removed to reveal old original features previously covered up for years.
After walking back up the delightful foxgloved avenue of Jimmy Bickles lane, the group were welcomed by Sue & Bill Andrew, & treated to a tour of the 16th century Walkhampton Churchouse, also Grade 2 listed . A former inn, it was also used for handing out bread to the poor, collecting tithes & parish meetings. It stands close to an old monastic track which is still waymarked with an ancient stone cross.
The visit was rounded off in the church with a brief talk & a superb tea of scones & cakes.
Anniversary Event
Over 90 members & guests packed into the Yelverton Memorial Hall for our society's 25th anniversary event. We were first entertained by Tony Beard, who regaled us with stories from his home village of Widecombe in the Moor. In his own inimitable style of story telling, laced with humour, he recounted the history of the Church house, the village green & the popular annual fair, along with several references to certain vicars of dubious character. He also spoke on the research & publications of their own local history society & his life in farming, including ploughing up various historical artefacts, a lot of which he had brought with him.
An interval allowed members to take a glass of wine & some nibbles & the table around Tony was buzzing with interest.
A quick change & Tony was now the Widecombe Wag & he had the audience rocking with his songs, jokes & yet more hilarious tales.
In summary, an excellent evening & befitting of the occasion which graced 4 members who had attended the inaugural meeting of the society in 1982. The four are pictured below - left to right : Sybil Ball, Margaret Garton, Stephen Hughes & Ron Price.
