Blighty Bound - Day Six, Tavvy

 

Today we motored over to Plymouth, picked up the family, and proceeded to Tavistock, known as Tavvy to the locals.

Tavvy is also known as "The Gateway to Dartmoor", and is an ancient Stannary town. If you have never heard of a Stannary Town, here is Wikipedia's take on it;

"A stannary was an administrative division established under stannary law in the English counties of Cornwall and Devon to manage the collection of tin coinage, which was the duty payable on the metal tin smelted from cassiterite ore mined in the region. In Cornwall, the duty was passed to the Duchy of Cornwall; in Devon to the Crown.

With the abolition of tin coinage in 1838 (following extensive petitioning by the Cornish tin industry for simplification of the taxation rules), the principal purpose of the stannaries ceased. In Cornwall, however, they retained certain historic rights to appoint stannators to the Cornish Stannary Parliament."

I'm not sure why I included that, other than the facts are mildly interesting. Next time you're in Tavistock you can proudly tell people what Stannery means.

We had come to visit Tavvy's Pannier Market, the indoor market that has different themes for each day of the week. Today we were visiting Bob's Trains' stall to see what second-hand model trains we could pick up.

But first we parked the car. It's a busy little town is Tavvy, and parking is at a premium. However, we found a place in the main car park and I set about adding another parking app to my UK phone so that I could pay remotely. Apart from the longish process, it all went well and soon I was poorer to the tune GBP3.20, but allowed to park my car for four hours without penalty. That was a result.

In the market, which was busy as usual, we consulted Bob the train man and came away with a small haul of excellent stuff. Bob and his friend (who's name I didn't catch) remembered us from our visit two years ago, which was a turn up. I suspect that we'll be back in two week's time to pick up more things that we should have bought today.

After a swift drink in a little, cramped, café run by two women who appeared not be on this planet a lot of the time, we headed back to the car and made the drive up on to the moors, and to the highest village in Devon, Princetown.

Princetown was once home to a maximum security prison, built from Dartmoor granite atop the inhospitable moors, in 1806. It's first prisoners were men captured in the Napoleonic wars. It remained in use until 2024, when major repairs, concerns about sanitation, and with the build up of Radon gas in the structure, forced its temporary closure. The buildings that form the prison are Grade II Listed, and the closure is supposed to be temporary, but I guess that time will reveal its fate.

The pub we were aiming for was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, so we drove down off the moor in and found a pub that was open, the Rock Inn in Yelverton, and enjoyed a meal and a drink.

Apart from a quick stop at a Marks and Spencer Food Hall on the way home, that was pretty much that. The weather behaved until we were on our way back, and we achieved what we had set out to achieve, so that was good.

Tomorrow sees us at Buckfastleigh, and another pub, although a pub with a difference. Stay tuned, dear reader.