9

WAR, RELIGION & FOLKLORE

RELIGION IN DEVON

Christianity was introduced to Devon in the first century AD. Many Cornish saints are also commemorated in Devon in legends, churches and place-names. The most notable of these is St Petroc, who is said to have passed through Devon – the villages of Petrockstowe and Newton St Petroc are named after him, and the Devon flag is also dedicated to him. The following Devon towns and villages have churches named after him:

Ashburton (Our Lady of Lourdes and St Petroc)

Dartmouth

Harford

Inwardleigh, Exeter

Ivybridge

Lydford

Parracombe

Petton, Bampton

South Brent

The other main Devon saint is St Boniface, also sometimes called Winfrid, Wynfrith, or Wynfryth, probably at Crediton, a missionary who went to spread Christianity in the Frankish Empire during the seventh century, and was killed in AD 754. He is the patron saint of Germany, and of tailors and brewers. His national shrine in Britain is at the Roman Catholic Church of St Boniface at Crediton, and there was formerly a church dedicated to St Boniface at St Budeaux, Plymouth, now demolished. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Plymouth, George Errington, founded St Boniface’s Catholic College in Wyndham Square, Plymouth in 1856.

St Urith, St Hieritha, or St Iwerydd, was born at East Stowford, near Barnstaple, in the seventh or eighth century. A fervent Christian, she founded a church at Chittlehampton, and was said to have been attacked and beheaded by a group of local female haymakers, or alternatively killed by an invading Saxon or Viking force. A stream and flowers immediately appeared at the point where she was cut down. She was buried at Chittlehampton church, where people would travel from some distance to come and visit her shrine. Each year on her feast day, 8 July, local children take part in a procession to bless her holy well and lay bunches of flowers at the church in her memory.

In 1549 the Act of Uniformity introduced the Protestant Book of Common Prayer, making the old Latin service books illegal. The new book was bitterly resented by many, and when Father Harper, Vicar of St Andrew’s Church, Sampford Courtenay, used it on Whit Sunday his parishioners demanded that he should revert to using the old one. At the next service, magistrates were present to ensure that this did not happen. A scuffle arose and when William Helyons, a local farmer and outspoken supporter of the new book, quarrelled with others on the steps of the church house, one picked up a pitchfork, ran it through him and left him dead. A group of parishioners marched to Exeter and besieged the city on 2 July in what became known as the Prayer Book Rebellion, demanding the withdrawal of all English scriptures. The city kept its gates closed for over a month, and Sir Gawain Carew, a Privy Councillor, and Lord John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford, were sent to put down the revolt. There were skirmishes between the rebels and government troops at Fenny Bridges, Clyst Heath and Sampford Courtenay, in which the former were defeated. The survivors fled, but most were rounded up and executed. Over 5,000, on both sides, were killed as a result of the rebellion.

The Exeter diocese, including the whole of Devon, remains the Anglican diocese. A Roman Catholic diocese was established at Plymouth in the mid-nineteenth century.

Devon has two of Britain’s oldest synagogues. One is at Catherine Street, Plymouth, built in 1762, and the other at Mary Arches Street, Exeter, built a year later.

OTHER DEVON CHURCHES

Most of Devon’s most interesting and picturesque churches inevitably date from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, considered the golden age of ecclesiastical craftsmanship, and occasionally earlier.

Ashton, Church of St John the Baptist, near Chudleigh

Fifteenth-century church noted for its interior and fourteenth-century panels, which have retained their original colours, and a particularly fine Elizabethan pulpit. The turret stair leading to the rood loft can still be climbed.

Atherington, Church of St Mary, near Barnstaple

Perpendicular church restored in 1884, with a screen and gallery dating back to probably the fifteenth century. The north aisle part of the screen, carved by two Chittlehampton craftsmen in about 1540, retains its original canopy. Elizabethan heraldic panels are preserved in the loft.

Holy Trinity Church, Burrington, near Barnstaple

Church built between 1150 and 1550 by the Abbot of Tavistock Abbey and cared for by Benedictine monks until the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and extensively restored in 1869. It has an old granite arcade, wagon roof with carved bosses, an early sixteenth-century rood screen and a Norman font. Samuel Davis, whose second wife Jane Blackmore was the half-sister of R.D. Blackmore of Lorna Doone fame, was vicar during the nineteenth century.

St Hieritha’s Church, Chittlehampton, Umberleigh

This church of the late Perpendicular period is the site of the healing well and shrine of St Urith, or Hieritha (see p. 141), who is believed to have been buried underneath, in the small chapel on the north side of the sanctuary. The 115ft tower is considered the finest in Devon. The pulpit, carved in about 1500, shows St Urith holding a martyr’s palm and the foundation stone of the church.

Church of St Mary Magdalene, Chulmleigh

This church, rebuilt in the fifteenth century, has an 86ft tower. The interior is decorated with a sixteenth-century rood screen, surmounted by wooden figures of the four evangelists.

St Andrew’s Church, Cullompton

With its striking red sandstone tower 100ft tall and pinnacles on top, built in about 1545, it is regarded as one of the most striking churches in Devon. The interior has a boarded wagon roof in blue, crimson and gold, stretching the whole length of the building. The west has damaged remains of a crucifixion scene with figures of King Edward VI and St George on either side. At the rear is the ‘Golgotha’ or Calvary, two large pieces of oak, once the base of a rood screen, carved with skulls, rocks and bones, to remind worshippers of the short span of life on earth, probably removed from the church in 1549 and cut in two but later rescued.

St Saviour’s Church, Dartmouth

A fourteenth-century church remarkable for its wood carving, especially on the rood screen, dating from 1480. The west gallery is embellished with the coats of arms of important local families, including Hawkins and Drake, painted in 1633. The south door, decorated with two Plantagenet leopards, is thought to be the original from 1372.

All Saints, East Budleigh

Another church with a red sandstone tower, its most remarkable connections are those of the Raleigh family. The bench ends, believed to be among the oldest surviving ones in England, are about 500 years old, and include the Raleigh pew with the family coat of arms. Sir Walter’s father was one of the churchwardens, and his second wife is buried in the centre aisle, the place marked by a floriated cross and surrounded by a Latin inscription cut in reverse, thought to be the result of a craftsman reading a tracing the wrong way round.

Church of St George, George Nympton, near South Molton

This church has no street frontage, being entered along a path through a garden gate between two thatched cottages. The original tower was destroyed by fire and rebuilt in 1673 with bricks made in a nearby field. The organ, one of twenty-five made in the Queen Anne period, is a four-octave single manual pipe instrument on which the black and white keys have their colours reversed.

St Mary’s Church, High Bickington, near Barnstaple

This twelfth-century church was enlarged with the addition of the north aisle and a south tower, making it the only church in the county with two towers. The Norman font, decorated with Maltese crosses and chevrons, was restored at one stage but fell into pieces when the encircling iron bands holding it together were removed, and had to be painstakingly reassembled.

St Mary’s Church, Honeychurch, near Okehampton

The original church is twelfth-century, with a west tower and south porch added in the fifteenth century. It is considered one of the smallest, most unsophisticated in the county. The tower has three medieval bells in their original cage, the Norman font a Jacobean cover, and the late medieval benches are mostly of plain unvarnished oak.

All Saints, Kenton

The fourteenth-century red sandstone church, with its 100ft tower, has carved heads on the porch thought to represent Henry IV and Queen Joan. The white Beer stone arcades are carved with foliage and various sculpted figures, and the fifteenth-century rood screen is considered one of the finest in the county. The pulpit, hewn from a large oak tree, was thrown away at some period but later rescued and restored in the nineteenth century.

St James’s Church, Kings Nympton

Mostly fifteenth-century, the west tower is probably older. All the roofs, including that of the porch, have carved bosses portraying foliage and heads of men and women, and there is an eighteenth-century painted ceiling above the chancel. The granite step to the porch is a former Celtic cross.

St Mary’s Church, Molland, near Barnstaple

This Perpendicular church is notable for its well-preserved Georgian interior. It has a memorial to the Revd O. Barry, who was persecuted for his adherence to the Royalist cause during the Civil War. The west face has two large tablets bearing the Ten Commandments and a panel between the royal arms, and in the north aisle is a three-decker pulpit with canopy.

St Mary’s, Ottery St Mary

Sometimes referred to as a miniature replica of Exeter Cathedral, 164ft long, it is renowned for its painted roof and fan-vaulted aisle. The south transept, or bell tower, contains an astronomical clock, one of the oldest surviving mechanical clocks in the country, attributed to Bishop John de Grandisson, Bishop of Exeter 1327–69. There are ten misericords, five showing the arms of the Bishop.

St Petroc’s Church, Parracombe

The church was probably built in the late eleventh century by William of Falaise, a close relation of William the Conqueror, with the tower being added in 1182 and the chancel in 1252. Much of the current fabric dates from sixteenth-century reconstruction. Fears about its stability in 1879 resulted in the building of a new church in the village, Christ Church. Protests about the threatened demolition of St Petroc’s, led by John Ruskin, resulted in its being retained as a mortuary chapel. The bells were removed and transferred to the new church. It was declared redundant in 1969 and two years later became the first to be vested in the Churches Conservation Trust.

St Andrew’s Church, Plymouth

Begun in the eleventh century, it underwent regular enlargement over the next three centuries or so. It is the largest parish church in the county at 184ft long and with a tower 136ft tall. It was extensively restored by Sir George Gilbert Scott in the Victorian era, and largely destroyed during the Second World War, with only the walls and tower left standing. The rebuilt structure was reconsecrated in 1957. The new organ is the largest church organ west of Bristol.

St Petroc’s Church, South Brent

The Norman tower of this church was the central tower of a cruciform building, of which the west portion was demolished probably in the early fourteenth century when the existing nave was rebuilt with two transepts, later enlarged into aisles. The partly fifteenth-century manor house is to the south of the churchyard. In 1436 the vicar, the Revd John Hay, was dragged out of the church while officiating at divine service and murdered, and the door through which he was taken has been walled up, the old doorway still being just visible.

St Andrew’s Church, South Tawton

The fifteenth-century church, built mostly of granite and stone from Beer, has a striking series of carved angels attached to the wall plates and several figures carved on the bosses of the nave, chancel and aisle roofs. Beneath the lychgate is a stone coffin table with a stone stile by its side.

St Peter’s Church, Tawstock

The fourteenth-century church is noted particularly for its collection of monuments, commemorating mostly members of the family of the Earls of Bath, and two ceilings of Italian plasterwork.

Holy Trinity Church, Torbryan

A fifteenth-century church with a Perpendicular three-stage tower and a medieval carved rood screen with panels showing paintings of saints and stained glass, it has been declared redundant and was vested in the Churches Conservation Trust in July 1987.

St Mary’s Church, Totnes

Completed in 1450, this church was built on the site of a previous one which was dedicated in 1259, and partially restored in the nineteenth century by Sir George Gilbert Scott. It has a fifteenth-century stone screen, pulpit and font, with Victorian stained-glass windows and an organ originally built for the Great Exhibition in 1851.

MONASTIC HOUSES IN DEVON

The majority closed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries during the reign of Henry VIII, if not before.

Axminster Monastery (Saxon monastic community)

Axmouth Priory (Benedictine monks)

Barnstaple Priory (Cluniac monks)

Bodmiscombe Preceptory (Knights Templar)

Brightley Priory (Cistercian monks)

Buckfast Abbey (successively Savignac monks, Cistercian monks, then Benedictine monks)

Buckland Abbey (Cistercian monks)

Canonsleigh Abbey (Augustinian nuns)

Careswell Cell (Cluniac monks)

Chudleigh Abbey (Brigittine nuns)

Cornworthy Priory (Augustinian nuns)

Cowick Priory (Benedictine monks)

Dartmouth Priory (Augustinian friars)

Dunkeswell Abbey (Cistercian monks)

Exeter St Nicholas Priory (Benedictine monks)

Exeter Black Friary (Dominican friars)

Exeter Cathedral Priory (Benedictine monks)

Exeter Grey Friary (Franciscan friars)

Exeter Nunnery (Augustinian nuns)

Exeter St James Priory (Cluniac monks)

Frithelstock Priory (Augustinian Canons Regular)

Hartland Abbey (Augustinian Canons Regular)

Ipplepen Priory (Augustinian Canons Regular)

Kerswell Priory (Cluniac monks)

Leigh Cell, Leigh Grange, near Loddiswell (uncertain order)

Marsh Barton Priory (Augustinian Canons Regular)

Modbury Priory (Benedictine monks)

Newenham Abbey (Cistercian monks)

Otterton Priory (Benedictine monks)

Pilton Priory (Benedictine monks)

Plymouth Black Friary (Dominican Friars), site now occupied by Black Friars Distillery

Plymouth Grey Friary (Carmelite Friars)

Plymouth White Friary (Carmelite Friars)

Plympton Priory (Augustinian Canons Regular), now Priory Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Plympton

Polsloe Priory, Exeter (Benedictine nuns)

Sidmouth Priory (Augustinian Canons Regular, Benedictine monks, later Brigittine monks)

St Austin’s Priory, Ivybridge (Augustinian (Augustinian Recollect))

St Dunstan’s Abbey, Plymouth

Tavistock Abbey (Benedictine monks)

Teignmouth Abbey (Benedictine nuns)

Torre Abbey (Premonstratensian Canons from Welbeck)

Totnes Priory (Benedictine monks)

Totnes Trinitarian Priory (Trinitarian monks)

SAXON & DANISH BATTLES

Although accounts of Devon history prior to medieval times lack detail, battles or skirmishes are recorded as being fought in various campaigns. The English and Saxons fought during the latter’s conquest of ‘Dumnonia’ as it was then known, at Beaundun or Bindon, near Axmouth, in 614, the invaders proving victorious, and killing an estimated 2,065 English. In 815 a Cornish raid at Galford near Lifton was beaten back. In 851 Danish invaders were repulsed by a force under the leadership of Cedorl, an ealdorman of Devon, at Wucganbeorgh, thought to be Weekaborough, near Torbay. In 876 Odda, another ealdorman, and his army successfully fought off another Viking attack at Countisbury, on Exmoor, although he and about 800 men were killed. In a renewed Danish onslaught on Devon between about 990 and 1003, Tavistock, Kingsteignton and Exeter were all sacked by the invaders.

THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR

As in most of the rest of the country, the peers and gentry in Devon were mainly Royalist in their sympathies, while the others inclined towards the side of Parliament, with the general majority for Cromwell. The people of Plymouth had little reason to love King Charles I, largely as a result of its experiences at the time of the abortive expedition against Cadiz early in his reign when many of the defeated British soldiers died from starvation or disease, and the town’s commerce suffered severely. Plymouth was besieged by Royalist forces who were eventually defeated. Queen Henrietta Maria stayed at the royal stronghold of Exeter and gave birth to a daughter there (see p. 8), but the king’s forces in the West Country were defeated by 1646.

THE FIRST WORLD WAR

On 27 May 1918 the 2nd Battalion, the Devonshire Regiment, fought at the third Battle of the Aisne, France, against the German Spring Offensive, defending the Bois des Buttes, and lost 23 officers and 528 privates, all either dead or missing. Among them was the Commanding Officer, Colonel Rupert Anderson-Morshead. The battalion was awarded the French Croix de Guerre.

THE SECOND WORLD WAR

The first German bomb fell on Plymouth on 6 July 1940, leaving three people dead and injuring six. They were the first of 1,172 civilians killed and 3,276 injured during the next four years, giving the city the unhappy distinction of being the most bombed city in Britain per capita in terms of civilian casualties. Between 1940 and 1944 there were 602 air raid alerts and 59 actual bombing attacks, 3,754 houses were destroyed and a further 18,398 seriously damaged; 2 guildhalls, 6 hotels, 8 cinemas, 26 schools, 41 churches and 100 public houses were among buildings destroyed, while the old city centre was completely destroyed apart from St Andrew’s Church, the Guildhall, the Regent Cinema (later demolished and replaced by Littlewoods store) and the Western Morning News offices.

In Exeter, there were 19 bombing raids between 1940 and 1942, in which 265 were killed and 788 injured. In 1942, as part of the Baedeker Blitz and specifically in response to the RAF bombing of Lübeck, 40 acres of the city, mainly the area adjacent to High Street and Sidwell Street, were destroyed, with the loss of several historic buildings, houses and shops.

On the south coast, Teignmouth suffered badly from ‘tip and run’ air raids. It was bombed 21 times between July 1940 and February 1944; in these raids 79 people were killed and 151 wounded, 228 houses were destroyed and over 2,000 damaged. Dartmouth, Torquay and Beesands also suffered casualties.

Newton Abbot was bombed several times between 1940 and 1942, with 22 killed and about 90 injured. The worst casualties were in August 1940 when three planes bombed the railway station, leaving 15 dead and 60 seriously injured.

DEVON IN WAR & PEACE

Her Majesty’s Naval Base (HMNB) Devonport, is one of three remaining naval operating bases in the United Kingdom, the others being at Portsmouth and Clyde, and the largest naval base in Western Europe. It is also the only nuclear repair and refuelling facility for the Royal Babcock International Group, who took over from the previous owner, Devonport Management Ltd, in 2007.

FORMER RAF STATIONS IN DEVON

Babbacombe

Bolt Head

Chivenor

Dunkeswell

Exeter

Harrowbeer

Mount Batten (founded as Cattewater 1918, renamed 1928)

Roborough

Winkleigh

VICTORIA CROSS WINNERS

The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration awarded for valour ‘in the face of the enemy’ to members of the armed forces of the United Kingdom, Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories. The following recipients of the award are all buried in Devon (all apart from Hudson and Pennell were living in the county at the time of their death), although Fleming-Sandes was visiting friends in Hampshire at the time. Those marked * were also born in Devon.

Sir Redvers Buller* (1839–1908), General, 60th Rifles (King’s Royal Rifle Corps), buried at Crediton

George Channer (1843–1905), General, 1st Gurkha Rifles, Bideford

Sir Henry Clifford (1826–83), Major-General, 1st Battalion Rifle Brigade, Ugbrooke House

Francis Farquharson (1837–75), Major, 42nd Regiment (Black Watch), Harberton

Arthur Fleming-Sandes (1894–1961), Major, 2nd Battalion East Surrey Regiment, Torquay (visiting at Romsey, Hampshire, at time of death)

Sir Gerald Graham (1831–99), Lieutenant-General, Corps of Royal Engineers, Bideford

Charles Grant (1861–1932), Brevet Colonel, 8th Gurkha Rifles, Sidmouth

Andrew Henry (1823–70), Captain, Royal Regiment of Artillery, Plymouth

George Hinckley (1819–1904), Quartermaster, Royal Navy, Plymouth

George Hollis (1833–79), Farrier, 8th Hussars (King’s Royal Irish), Exeter

Charles Edward Hudson (1892–1959), Major-General, Comd. 11th Battalion, The Sherwood Foresters, Denbury

James Hutchinson (1895–1972), Corporal, 2/5th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, Torquay

James Johnson (1889–1943), Second Lieutenant, 2nd Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers, Plymouth

Edgar Myles (1894–1977), Captain, 8th Battalion Welch Regiment, Torquay

William Oxenham* (1823–75), Corporal, 32nd Regiment, Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, Exeter

Henry Pennell (1874–1907), Captain, 2nd Battalion Derbyshire Regiment, Dawlish

Peter Roberts (1917–79), Lieutenant, Royal Navy, Newton Ferrers

Thomas Sage* (1882–1945), Private, 8th Battalion Somerset Light Infantry, Tiverton

Gordon Steele* (1892–1981), Commander, Royal Navy, Winkleigh

Henry Sylvester (1831–1920), Surgeon Major, 23rd Regiment, Paignton

Alfred Toye (1897–1955), Brigadier, 2nd Battalion Middlesex Regiment, Tiverton

A memorial plaque was unveiled in Kingswear six months after his death to Lieutenant-Colonel Herbert ‘H’ Jones (1940–82), who was killed during the Falklands War and buried there. He had spent part of his early life in the town.

THE STONE CROSS MEMORIAL

One of the most unusual individual war memorials is the Cave-Penney Memorial or the Sherwell Cross, on Corndon Down, near Poundsgate. It was erected in memory of Evelyn Anthony Cave-Penney, a nineteen-year-old lieutenant in Queen Victoria’s Own Corps of Guides, who had lived with his family at Sherwell. He fought with his infantry in Egypt and Palestine during the First World War, and was shot dead by an enemy sniper on 8 June 1918.

GHOSTS, WITCHES & LEGENDS

The Berry Pomeroy ghost

Berry Pomeroy Castle near Totnes, built in the early twelfth century, was home to the Pomeroy family from soon after the Norman Conquest until 1549 when it passed to Sir Edward Seymour, who built a mansion within the walls of the Norman castle, though from the seventeenth century onwards it suffered during the Civil War and later fire, and little now remains. The dungeons are said to be haunted by the White Lady, who rises from St Margaret’s Tower to the castle ramparts. She has been identified as the ghost of Lady Margaret Pomeroy who was imprisoned in the dungeons by her sister, Lady Eleanor. The latter was insanely jealous of her younger and prettier sister, and kept her captive because of a love rivalry, after Lord Pomeroy departed on a crusade and left Eleanor in charge. Margaret was imprisoned in the castle dungeons for nearly two decades, before Eleanor allowed her a slow and painful death through starvation. A blue light has been seen on a particular day every year in St Margaret’s Tower, usually during the evening.

The Devil came down to Widecombe

On 21 October 1638, about 300 were packed inside St Pancras Church for Sunday service, when the sky turned pitch black and a fearful thunderstorm erupted. ‘Extraordinary lightning came into the church so flaming that the whole church was presently filled with fire and smoke, the smell whereof was very loathsome, much like unto the scent of brimstone, some said at first they saw a great fiery ball come in through the window and pass through the church,’ wrote one chronicler. A great ball of fire tore through a window, apparently blasting open the roof, tearing through the wall of the church tower and rebounding ‘like a cannon ball’, dislodging a pinnacle on the church tower which crashed through the roof, sending a large beam and building stones tumbling down. Many of the congregation were thrown to the ground, several were killed and about sixty injured. The ball of fire may have been a violent form of ball lightning, a rare and mysterious form sometimes seen in exceptionally intense thunderstorms. The Devil was apparently after Jan Reynolds, an unscrupulous local tin miner, who owed him money. On his way to Widecombe, a gentleman in a long black cape had called at the Tavistock Inn at Poundsgate, partly to ask for directions to the church and partly for a pint of ale. As he drank it, the other patrons heard it sizzle and saw steam as it went down his throat. As he passed the landlady a gold coin in payment, it turned into a leaf, went brittle and withered away. He then saddled his horse, rode to the church and tethered it outside, which was the moment at which the lightning struck.

The landlady of a nearby inn described how the Devil had passed through that day, and ordered ale that sizzled and steamed as he drank it. Tornados were often referred to as the Devil in those days, and it is thought that an exceptionally violent thunderstorm spawned both a tornado and ball lightning.

The wicked Lady Mary

Okehampton Castle was home to Lady Mary Howard, a seventeenth-century aristocrat who married four men (the first when she was only twelve years old) and allegedly killed each one of them, as well murdering maybe two of her children. Since her death, apparently from natural causes, she is condemned to travel nightly between Tavistock and Okehampton Castle, in a coach made of human bones from her victims, their skulls adorning the corners and the top. The coach is preceded by a huge black dog with one flaming eye in the middle of its forehead. Each night she must pluck a blade of grass from Okehampton Park, and only when all the grass is gone will she be set free again. Those who have seen the Lady have reported seeing images of her headless driving too.

Kitty Jay

The orphan Kitty Jay worked on a Dartmoor farm in the early nineteenth century and fell in love with the son of the house, who made her pregnant and then abandoned her. She then hanged herself in one of the barns. As she was a suicide, she could not be buried in consecrated ground, and was laid to rest at a crossroads near Manaton with a stake driven through her heart, so that her soul could not return to haunt the good Godfearing folk. In 1860 her bones were discovered while the road was being repaired, and reburied in the same place. Ever since then, freshly placed flowers appear on the site almost daily, placed there – it is said – by the Dartmoor piskies. People have reported seeing a dark figure wrapped in a cloak kneeling beside the grave, apparently the ghost of the farmer’s son who is sentenced as an eternal punishment to stand vigil over the grave of Kitty and their unborn child.

The hairy hands

The B3212 near Two Bridges, southern Dartmoor, is renowned for its association with the ‘hairy hands’, which are said to have threatened drivers and even caused fatal accidents. In June 1921 Dr Helby, a medical officer who worked at Dartmoor Prison, was riding his motorcycle on his way to attend an inquest at Postbridge, with his two children in the sidecar. As he approached the bridge passing over the East Dart, he shouted at them to jump clear at once. They did so, just in time before he lost control of the vehicle and it crashed, leaving him with fatal injuries. A few weeks later a charabanc was on the same road when it suddenly swerved and mounted a slope on the right-hand side. Several passengers were thrown clear and one woman was seriously injured. The driver said afterwards that he was sure a pair of rough hairy hands had closed around him and driven him off the road.

Following an article in the Daily Mail in October 1921, authorities sent engineers to investigate the road, and the camber was made less deep. It did not put an end to similar incidents. In 1924 a young couple were sleeping in a caravan beside the road. During the night the woman awoke in a cold sweat, convinced she was in danger, and then saw a pair of hairy hands clawing at her partly open window. Keeping calm, she made the sign of the cross and they disappeared.

Ever since, motorists and cyclists have described similar incidents while on the same journey, while farmers with ponies and traps have said they have been forced into the verge. In 1961 a man from Plymouth died after overturning his car there, and in 1991 a Somerset doctor was injured in an accident which he described afterwards as if ‘something evil’ was in the car beside him, wrenching the steering wheel from his grasp.

Bideford witches

In 1682 a poor elderly woman, Temperance Lloyd, was arrested ‘upon suspicion of having used some magical art, sorcery or witchcraft upon the body of Grace Thomas’. The meeting in front of the magistrates took place in Higher Gunstone, while Grace’s illness consisted of a ‘griping’ in her ‘belly, stomach and breast.’ Grace Barnes was experiencing fits and Mary Trembles who was loitering outside Grace’s house, was accused of being a witch along with another old woman, Susanna Edwards. Grace was carried to the town hall to give evidence, while Mary and Susanna were sent to join Temperance at Exeter. At the trial on August 1682 they all pleaded not guilty, although they seemed to have freely confessed to their ‘crimes’ during cross-examination. They were found guilty and hanged on 25 August 1682 at Heavitree, among the last people to be executed in England for practising witchcraft.

The horsemen of Lustleigh Cleave

Hunters Tor, Lustleigh Cleave, on eastern Dartmoor, is reportedly haunted by phantom horsemen. The riders are dressed in medieval costume and their horses brightly decorated. Two other riders saw and followed them until the group disappeared behind a stone wall, after which there was no trace of them, and the only hoofprints discernible on the ground were those of the modern riders’ animals. According to theory, the ghost horsemen were the Sheriff of Devon and twelve of his knights, ordered by King Henry III in 1240 to ride around the county boundaries to establish ownership.

Cranwell Pool

Also known as Crazywell, or Classiwell Pool, near Princetown, this water features strongly in local superstition. It is said that anybody who gazes into it on Midsummer’s Eve will see the face of the next parishioner from nearby Walkhampton to die, and that those who walk within earshot of it at dusk will hear it call out the name of the next person to pass away. Somebody in a local pub was heard telling his friends the story, and two sceptical youths who overheard the conversation dismissed it as nonsense. They were challenged and told that they would not dare to visit the pool next Midsummer’s Eve – but they accepted. As it was some distance by foot, they went by motorbike, and on the way back the vehicle sped off the road. Both were killed instantly.

The pool has been associated with bad luck ever since the fourteenth century when it was reputedly haunted by the Witch of Sheepstor, who always gave her clients bad advice. Piers Gaveston, the notorious favourite of King Edward II, was in Devon during a period of banishment from court, and she advised him to return to Warwick Castle, where ‘his humbled head shall soon be high’. He did so, only to be captured by his enemies, beheaded, and his head placed high – on the battlements of the castle.

Sir Richard and Buckfastleigh Church

Richard Cabell, the local squire at Buckfastleigh, was believed to have murdered his wife and sold his soul to the devil. When he lay dying on 5 July 1677, it was said, hounds howled around his house waiting to take him to hell, and when he was buried, they returned to come and bay at his tomb. The villagers were so intent on laying his soul to rest that they laid a huge slab of stone on top of his tomb, and added a small house-like structure on top, to make sure he did not escape. Nevertheless, from time to time some have claimed to see a red glow shining through the bars. Every year on the anniversary of his death, tradition has it that he leads the phantom pack across the moors nearby, and can sometimes be seen riding in a coach led by a headless coachman and drawn by headless horses, with a pack of spectral hounds who came from the depths of the moor to escort his soul to hell chasing after them.

The church has attracted more than its fair share of bad luck. Being in a secluded location, in the early nineteenth century the graveyard was often raided by bodysnatchers, and in 1849 it was partly destroyed by arsonists. Restored in 1884, it fell victim to another arson attack in 1992 and was completely gutted.

The stranger at Down House Farm

At Down House Farm, half a mile outside Tavistock, the family was convinced that a ghost would appear one night, and so they always went to bed early in the hope that this would keep them safe from harm. On one such occasion, one of the boys was unwell and insisted he had to have a drink of water direct from the pump. Dreading she would meet the ghost, his mother went downstairs to fetch it for him. As she went she saw a shadow, heard footsteps behind her, and as she reached the pump she felt an icy hand on her shoulder. When she turned round, she saw a tall man standing there, and she asked him what he was doing. He asked her gently to watch him, as he promised that he was going to show her some hidden treasure. Lifting up the pump, he revealed a large quantity of money, which he urged her to take for herself and use for the good of the farm. He then told her that if anybody should attempt to deprive the family of the farm, they would pay dearly for it; and finally, that if she went and took the water to her boy, he would recover at once. Just then a cock crowed outside, the figure turned into a shadow, disappeared outside and turned into a small cloud.

The beast (or beasts) of Dartmoor

During the last thirty years or so, there has been much talk of sightings of big cats on Dartmoor, Devon’s own equivalent of the Loch Ness monster. One theory is that the Dangerous Animals Act of 1976, which required owners of such animals to obtain a licence before keeping them in captivity, released them into the wild in order to spare themselves the bother. Another is that they have escaped from a travellers’ camp. Yet another is that ‘the Dartmoor beast(s)’ owe more to a combination of rumour feeding rumour, and sheer imagination, than anything else. People claim to have seen large black animals (pumas or panthers), large sandy-brown animals (lions), huge paw prints and skulls, and dead sheep and ponies with injuries that could only have been caused by such predators. For every person who believes there are fierce wild creatures running around on the moor, there is at least one other who points to the likelihood of their merely being large dogs seen from a distance, with foxes having been responsible for the killings. The present author recalls his mother sometimes taking a large golden Labrador retriever out while walking on the southern edges of the moor, and at least once this coincided with a story in the news about somebody having definitely seen the ‘Dartmoor lion’. There is a British county league table of big cat sightings in the wild, and Devon is ranked fourth.

HAUNTED PUBS

The Bishop Lacey Inn, Chudleigh

A former landlord at the fourteenth-century inn, the oldest in Chudleigh, was closing up one night as a cloaked figure came through the door and went upstairs, disregarding the signs saying ‘Private’. He called out but the visitor took no notice. His wife came downstairs to ask him who he was talking to, and when he explained, she told him that nobody was there. However, guests subsequently heard unexplained footsteps around the premises. A couple of years later, a married couple and their son came to the inn where they intended to stay for three days, but after hearing and sensing a strange presence during the night, checked out and left hurriedly next morning. The character is supposed to be either a monk or Edmund Lacey, Bishop of Exeter, himself.

Old Smugglers’ Inn, Coombe Cellars, near Teignmouth

A live-in barmaid woke night after night, terrified that although she had locked her bedroom, she was not alone. The landlord told her she was imaging things, until he found some old prints of the pub at a local auction. One of them clearly showed a woman being murdered by an intruder – in what was identifiably the same bedroom as the one occupied by his barmaid.

The Pig and Whistle, Littlehempston,

near Totnes A special chair was reserved by the fireside in the bar for ‘Freddie’, a hunchbacked smiling monk, who would appear through a window where there used to be a door. Although very few people would admit to having seen him, many of those who knew the story heard and saw the window open and assume that he was arriving. One, more fortunate (if that is the right word) than most, a clairvoyant from Plymouth who came in for a drink one evening with his wife, told the landlady afterwards that he had seen the figure of a monk following her around the bar.

Church House Inn, Torbryan, near Newton Abbot

One night the landlord was locking up, when his dog’s hackles rose and the cat arched her back as they stared at something in the corner of the bar. The cat shot upstairs, though she had never done so before, and for several nights afterwards, the dog would stand on the landing at exactly the same time each evening, and bark. Another landlord told of staying awake in his bedroom with his wife on New Year’s Eve to welcome in the New Year, when they heard the door open at the bottom of the stairs, followed by footsteps. They called out, assuming their son had just returned early from a rather disappointing party, but there was no answer. Their son did call out as he arrived back – five hours later.

LEGENDARY CREATURES

Dartmoor pixies, or piskies, are small mythological creatures usually portrayed with pointed ears. They are said to love riding on Dartmoor ponies, enjoy music and dancing, and reputedly have a mischievous sense of humour in that they sometimes mislead unwary travellers across the moor into bogs. The only defence against being ‘pixie-led’ is for people to turn their coats inside out first. During the Civil War, it is said, a member of the staunchly Royalist Elford family at Tavistock took refuge from Cromwell’s troops on Dartmoor in a pixie house, a natural cavern on Sheepstor.

Pixie Day takes place at Ottery St Mary every year on the Saturday nearest to Midsummer’s Day, commemorating the banishment of the pixies from the town where they caused trouble to a local cave on the banks of the Otter known as ‘Pixies’ Parlour’. It begins with a large fête, followed by local children dressed in pixie costumes going to drag the bellringers from the church to the town square for a re-enactment of the banishment, and finally a fireworks display.

Dartmoor and Exmoor are home to the ‘wisht hounds’, or black dogs with staring eyes, who hunt down unbaptised souls.

The Dewerstone, near Shaugh Bridge, is traditionally the site where footprints in the snow, one human, another of cloven hoofs, showed where Dewer (the devil) led a traveller over a cliff edge in a blizzard.

The popular Dartmoor song, ‘Widecombe Fair’, which purports to be about taking people to market on Tom Pearse’s grey mare, is sometimes said to be a dark tale about taking souls to the devil.

LOCAL CUSTOMS

Widecombe Fair

Widecombe Fair, as immortalised in the song with its refrain of ‘Old Uncle Tom Cobley an’ all’, takes place annually on the second Tuesday in September. The earliest reference that can be traced to it is a reference in a Plymouth newspaper of about 1850 calling it a cattle fair. Later it became an opportunity to show and sell other livestock, and in about 1920 sports for local schoolchildren were also introduced. In 1933 stalls for rural arts and crafts were added. It was suspended during the Second World War but revived in 1945, including for the first time a gymkhana and a tug-of-war contest. Apart from cancellation during 2001 after an outbreak of foot and mouth disease, it has continued ever since. During the early years it was held in various locations around the village, and nowadays it is staged in a large field south of the village, with adjacent fields used for parking. It also includes a dog show and vintage farm machinery.

Guy Fawkes’ Day

On 5 November, two Devon towns have their own unique and very different customs. One is at Shebbear, where people turn the devil’s stone in order to avert bad luck for another year. The stone, about 6ft long and weighing at least a ton, is said to have been dropped by the devil when he was expelled from heaven. A more prosaic explanation is that it was quarried as a foundation stone for Hanscott church nearby and was moved to Shebbear by the devil or some other supernatural powers, then taken away at intervals but always mysteriously returned to Shebbear. In 1940 most able-bodied men were away on war service and the custom fell into abeyance, but next year the news of the war became so bad that, ever since then, the locals have not dared to let it slip by again.

The other is at Ottery St Mary, where 5 November means Tar Barrels, which are soaked in tar for several weeks before the event. During the evening they are lit outside the town’s four pubs, and when the flames start to pour out, people (who have to have been born in the town or lived there most of their lives) carry them over their shoulders. Those who are mouthing the words ‘risk assessment’ or ‘Health and safety’ may rest assured that the event is carefully stewarded to ensure maximum safety, and throughout the evening roads in and out of the town are closed to traffic.

Worm Charming

The annual Worm Charming Festival is held every May Day Bank Holiday in a field in Blackawton, the exact site not being revealed in advance just in case anybody should try to introduce an unduly large number of worms into the soil beforehand. Contestants tap or dance on the ground, and water, beer, cider, gravy or sugar are applied to try to bring them up to the surface. They are not allowed to dig, but can otherwise use any means to catch them as long as they do them no physical harm. They have to sample the liquids first in order to prove that they contain no noxious substances or poison. Fancy dress is encouraged and prizes are awarded for the best costume, while other attractions include or have included a beer festival, ram roasts, Morris and maypole dancing, various games and car boot sales.

Tavistock Goosey Fair

This tradition dating back to the early twelfth century has been held every second Wednesday in October since 1823. It attracts market traders and showmen from throughout the country, with over 200 stalls and sideshows set up in the town centre. Farmers used to drive their geese through the streets to the market, though this practice has stopped partly for ethical reasons, and partly because of the incidence of fowlpest in the second half of the twentieth century. A song ‘Tavistock Goozey Vair’ was published in 1912 by C. John Trythall, although nobody is certain whether he wrote it or was simply the first to publish an old song which had been handed down from previous generations.

The Devon County Show

The Devon County Show is an agricultural show held annually over three days in May. It began in 1872, when the Devon County Agricultural Association was formed to promote such an event, and was held at different sites around the county until 1956, when it moved to a regular site at Whipton. It moved to its present site at the Westpoint Arena and Showground, Clyst St Mary, in 1990. In 1981 it was almost called off for the first time in its history because of bad weather. A long spell of heavy rain had turned the site into a quagmire, and on the eve of its opening on 20 May, officials met to make a decision. They went ahead with the show, employing a convoy of lorries working round the clock to deliver tons of gravel to spread on the worst-affected areas. The jumping events which were to have been held in the main ring were cancelled, and the closure of some fields which would have been used for parking resulted in long traffic queues. A bill of over £25,000 for sand and gravel, and poor attendances of 61,252 as opposed to 91,604 the previous year, resulted in a substantial loss for the organisers.

Sidmouth Folk Week

Sidmouth Folk Week, previously Sidmouth International Festival, is held annually in the first week of August and includes concerts, ceilidhs, workshops, dance displays and children’s activities. It was founded as a folk dance festival in 1955 by the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS), and expanded to cover ceilidh dancing, music, song and related folk crafts. After widening its scope to include performers from abroad, it was renamed the Sidmouth International Folklore Festival. In 1986, the management was taken over by a new company which renamed it Sidmouth International Festival and ran it for 18 years, attracting about 65,000 visitors annually. A change of management in 2004 saw it take its present name.

Dartmoor Folk Festival

This was founded in 1978 by local musician Bob Cann who saw it as a means of helping to revive and preserve the traditions of Dartmoor, and the traditional music, dance, song and crafts of the area. The first three festivals were held in the grounds of Wood Country House near South Tawton, before it moved to its present location in South Zeal in 1981.

Several other annual events are held in the county, among them Chagstock (the Chagford UK Music Festival), Bideford Folk Festival and the Teignmouth Folk and Jazz Festivals.

Until the early eighteenth century, when a tenant cottager in High Bickington died, the lord of the manor would claim the best beast for ‘herriot’, and any widow who retained the tenancy must remain chaste, in other words not remarry, or else the tenancy would be forfeited. If this occurred, she could regain it by attending the Court Baron, bestriding a ram back to front, and holding its tail while reciting her offence as she prayed to be readmitted to her land.

DEVON FLAGS & COATS OF ARMS

The Devon flag was created in 2002 as a result of a vote on the BBC Devon website, with the winning design by student Ryan Sealey, who allegedly produced it on his home computer in about ten minutes, taking 49 per cent of the votes. Its predominantly green colour represents that of the rolling hills, the black the high windswept moorland, and the white the salt spray of both coastlines and the China Clay industry. In October 2006 Devon County Council raised the flag outside County Hall for the first time.

In April 2004 Rodney Lock, of Ottery St Mary, had been threatened with legal action for flying a Devon flag in his back garden, and faced a £60 charge to get planning permission from East Devon District Council. A spokesman said they had received a complaint and had no choice but to investigate the matter. As a result, the Minister for Housing ruled that authorities could officially ‘turn a blind eye’ to the practice of flying county flags from poles.

WHEN THE DEVON FLAG CAN OFFICIALLY BE FLOWN

The Devon Flag Group (DFG), a non-profit-making organisation set up in 2003 to promote the use of the flag, has recommended the following as appropriate dates, based on local events and the feast days of saints with particular county relevance.

4 January – St Rumon of Tavistock and Romansleigh

7 January – St Brannock of Braunton

5 March – St Piran, patron saint of tin miners

7 April – St Brannock, celebrated on this day in Exeter

May – May Day Bank Holiday; anniversary of first time Devon Flag was flown at World Gig Championship, Isles of Scilly, 2003; Devon County Show

3 June – St Kevin, educated by St Petroc

4 June – St Petroc, for whom the flag is dedicated

5 June – St Boniface of Crediton

6 June – St Gudwal, hermit of Devon

17 June – St Nectan, patron of Hartland

21/2 June – Midsummer’s Day

8 July – St Urith

13 July – St Juthware

30 July – Anniversary of defeat of Spanish Armada

August – St Sidwell, virgin of Exeter

10 August – St Geraint of Dumnonia

30 August – St Rumon

28 September – Anniversary of Sir Francis Drake’s circumnavigation of the world

2 November – St Cumgar

5 November – St Kea

7 November – St Congar

8 December – St Budoc (Budeaux) of Plymouth

12 December – St Corentin

21/2 December – Midwinter

31 December–6 January – New Year’s Eve to Twelfth Night

PLYMOUTH’S COAT OF ARMS

Plymouth’s coat of arms, designed by Arthur Cockrane, Clarenceux King of Arms, and authorised in 1931, consists of a silver spade-shaped shield with a green St Andrew’s Cross (the dedication of the Mother Church of Plymouth) and four black towers representing the towers of the original Plymouth Castle. The crest is a blue naval crown, and a red anchor held aloft by a golden lion’s paw, taken from the old Devonport arms and representing the naval connection. The two lion supporters, with red medallions charged with a silver boar’s head, are taken from the arms of the Mount Edgcumbe family, who held the Manor of East Stonehouse. The motto, ‘Turris fortissima est nomen Jehova’, translates as ‘The name of Jehovah is the strongest tower’, from the Proverbs of Solomon.

EXETER’S COAT OF ARMS

Confirmed by William Hervey, Clarenceux King of Arms during a visit to Devon in 1564, Exeter’s arms depict the long-vanished Rougemont Castle, with the distinctive form of the castle described in the blazon as ‘triangular and triple towered’. The red and black colouring of the field has no apparent significance. The crest wreath is black and gold, the colours of the Duchy of Cornwall, the crest itself being a red crowned lion holding a golden orb, for Richard, Earl of Cornwall, Holy Roman Emperor. The same lion appears in the arms of Devon County Council and some of the towns and districts of Devon. The supporters are winged horses or pegasuses, the wings are charged with blue waves, representing the River Exe. The motto ‘Semper Fidelis’ (Ever Faithful) was suggested by Elizabeth I in a letter addressed to the citizens of Exeter in 1588 in recognition of a gift of money towards the fleet that defeated the Spanish Armada.

TORBAY’S COAT OF ARMS

Torbay’s arms, granted on 12 May 1968, are a simple map of Torbay, the gold enarched chief representing the sandy beaches, and the blue field the sea. The ship represents the maritime interests of the borough, while the St George’s flag and streamers recall the area’s historic links with the Royal Navy. From the masthead hangs a cross composed of the stocks of four anchors, suggesting the fusion of four maritime councils in one. Each arm of the cross resembles a letter T for Torbay. On the chief is a mural crown, symbol of local government, and showing the borough situated on Tor Bay. The crown is red, the colour of Devon earth, and has four crenellations for the four old councils. The blue and gold livery colours refer to the sea and sands. Blue also featured in the arms or devices of Torquay, Paignton and Brixham, and these are also the livery colours of the arms of Nassau, commemorating the landing of William of Orange at Brixham. Dolphins, featured in the crests of Paignton and Torquay, are often found in the arms of seaside towns. The crosier is from the arms of Torre Abbey, and the horseshoe, from the Ferrers family arms, represents Churston Ferrers. The supporters, sealions, are derived from the sinister supporter of the arms of Devon County Council. The leonine part of the supporters is coloured red, like the lion in the arms of the County Council. Each supporter is differenced by a cable around the neck from which hangs a Tau cross. This suggests the initial T of the Borough’s name, and also sounds like the word ‘Tor’, which names the bay. The motto, ‘Salubritas Et Felicitas’, means Health and Happiness.

MID-DEVON’S COAT OF ARMS

The Mid-Devon shield has a background of white and blue waves indicating the rivers of the district, and over them lies a chief across the top and a pale down the middle, both coloured red for the Devon earth. At the top is a stylised castle in gold, suggested by that in the Tiverton borough seal, between two gold wheatsheaves indicating agriculture, denoting the former Borough and Rural District of Tiverton. On the pale is a crosier alluding to St Boniface of Crediton. He is said to have cut down a huge oak tree sacred to Thor, and the oak is associated with him in sacred art. His episcopal staff is shown entwined with a branch of oak also in gold, this also being a reference to the rural area around Crediton. The shield thus represents all four areas of the former authorities. The crest is a span of the district’s history from medieval to modern industrial times. The blue lion is that of the Radvers Earls of Devon, one of whom, Richard, built Tiverton Castle in the early twelfth century. He holds the woolpack from the Borough Seal, indicating the importance of the woollen industry in this area in earlier times. The woolpack is charged with a steel cogwheel for industry and engineering. The motto ‘Fide et Industria’ translates as ‘By Faith and Diligence’, or ‘By Faith and Industry’.

DARTMOUTH’S COAT OF ARMS

Dartmouth’s coat of arms bear the symbolic representation of a king, probably Edward III, who granted the town a charter in 1341. On either side is a seated lion. The ship, king and lions are all tinctured gold, as recognition of the town’s provision of ships for the naval campaigns in the Hundred Years’ War, as well as the assembly of a fleet for Richard I’s invasion of the Holy Land. The borough was originally constituted under a charter of King Henry II as ‘the Borough of Clifton Dartmouth and Hardness’. The seal was recorded by the borough at the heralds’ visitation of Devon in 1620, and the design was confirmed as the borough arms by a King of Arms Certificate in January 1951.