Blighty Bound - Day Twenty, Across The Moors

 

We woke to changing weather, the temperatures down and the sky quite gloomy. That's not really a complaint because this is March and we've had a week of unseasonably warm weather, which we have enjoyed, so a return to normal March is fine.

We had to be in Plymouth, but as time was not pressing, we opted to drive over the moors. I'd tried to scope out a route that wasn't all single track roads, and set off up the hill towards Hay Tor. We hadn't gone a mile before we were enveloped in thick mist and drizzle. My mum always used to call it "low cloud", and it may have been just that, but it is typical weather for the high moors in Devon. We were making for Widecombe (in-the-Moor), and it was quite other worldly as we passed sheep and ponies lurking in the mist. As we dropped down into Widecombe, we found ourselves out of the mist, but then we climbed back into it as we made for Ponsworthy. 

The roads around the eastern side of Dartmoor are narrow, hilly, and twisty. When I say narrow I mean for a lot the time they're only just wide enough for one vehicle. They're bounded by moss covered stone walls and quite often by eight-feet high hedges, so you're driving in a trench where you can't see around the corners, or over the crests of the many, often very steep, hills. The speed limit within the Dartmoor National Park is 40mph, but on these roads, 15-20mph is the best you'll do. As it happened, we didn't meet many vehicles coming towards us, and when we did it was in places where all it needed was for one of us to pause in a wider area, like a field gate, or farm entrance, and let the other through. Like most driving in the UK, it requires co-operation, and the people who drive these roads are certainly co-operative; they have to be.

Not my photo, and not my rented car, but you get the idea

The bridge across the River Webburn in Ponsworthy is only 7' 6" wide, and our car is 6' 3" wide, so it's quite a squeeze across there, and has to be taken slowly. The river is little more than a stream in the very steep sided valley, but the bridge has to be negotiated, and judging by the scrapes along the stone work, not everyone had been as careful as I was.

Climbing up the other side of the valley after Ponsworthy, the mist was as thick as ever, then we emerged from it again as we made the precipitous descent into another valley at Dartmeet. At least the bridge at Dartmeet, across the River Dart, is a bit wider, but the drop into and out of the valley is seriously steep. Dartmeet is a really popular tourist location in the summer as there is an ancient clapper bridge there, made from slabs of granite. There's also a heap of huge, smooth boulders in the fast flowing but shallow river which are great for climbing on; I know, I've done it many times. Today, though, in the mist and drizzle, Dartmeet was almost deserted.

The road towards Princetown is on a high plateau and wide enough to have a central dividing lane painted on it, so the pace was a bit quicker albeit that the mist was thicker than ever. At Two Bridges, another valley with a bridge, or in this case two bridges, we decided to take a detour and head into Tavistock. The Pannier Market was on and we thought we might have a look and see if there were any more trains to be had at Bob's stall there. We didn't really lose the mist until we were almost in Tavvy, but now we had the rain. 

The people using the car park in town were being absolute divvies, so I ignored them, paid the parking fee and walked with DW in the rain over to the market. Bob did indeed have a train a or two, so we spent some money, then we had a browse around to see what was what. It's an entrancing place, the Pannier Market, and I'd recommend it to anyone visiting Tavistock.

We also had a browse around Tavistock itself and made the trenchant observation that every second retail shop is a coffee and/or pastry shop. A sign of the times, I think.

Our next port of call was Weston Mill Cemetery in Plymouth. DW wanted to visit the little plaque in the Garden of Remembrance that honoured her grandparents. It was a bit dank, but the cemetery was wonderful. Huge, and not at all what I imagined, it is very much an "active" cemetery, with new burials taking place all the time. DW's grandparents had been cremated and their ashes spread in the garden, as had the ashes of a few other relatives including (quite unofficially) her mother. We also found a bench that had been dedicated to DW's aunt who had died a few years ago, which was a nice discovery. With all this family tree research, graveyards and cemeteries have become fascinating places. I was particularly taken with the growing trend of embedding a photograph of a grave's incumbent on the gravestone. I know that's been done for years in Eastern Europe, but it's interesting to see in the UK. I don't intend to have a gravestone, but if I did, I'd be happy with a photograph of me embedded in it.

That was it for the day, other than a grand afternoon with DW's folks, fish and chips, and a slow run home in the dark. I did make a blunder with the tomato ketchup that my MiL put out for my use when I didn't spot that it was Siracha Sauce flavour, the bottle and label looked at first glance just like regular tomato ketchup, and I do not do spicy things. I ate the chips I'd smothered in the horrible stuff and was please that at least there was no lingering afterburn. What a plonker I am.

Lunch in Plymouth tomorrow, so I shall be starving myself until then.

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.