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A FINAL JAUNT AROUND THE COUNTY

During the local government reorganisation in the early 1970s which led to the creation of several new counties throughout Britain, Plymouth lobbied for the creation of a new Tamarside county to include Plymouth, Torpoint, Saltash and the rural hinterland. The campaign was unsuccessful, and on 1 April 1974 Plymouth ceased to be a county borough, with responsibility for education, social services, highways and libraries transferred to Devon County Council. These powers were restored to the city when it became a unitary authority on 1 April 1998 under the recommendations of the Banham Commission.

‘Discobolos’, a statue of a naked disc thrower (which with a name like that was probably asking for a vulgar nickname) which formerly stood in Rock Park, Barnstaple, was removed during the 1970s and destroyed. Some said this was as it was badly damaged and beyond repair, others that it was indecent. A former official, according to a colleague, said that those who defended it and ‘showed too much interest in statues of naked men would be better off in jail’.

The Devon Rex cat breed was first discovered at Buckfastleigh in the 1960s.

On the clock face on the side of St Peter’s Church, Buckland-in-the-Moor, starting at 9 o’clock, instead of numerals are letters in Gothic script, reading clockwise, ‘MY DEAR MOTHER’.

Dartmoor granite taken from Haytor quarry in the nineteenth century was used in the building of London Bridge, the British Museum and Covent Garden. The last granite quarried there prior to closure was for the Exeter War Memorial in 1919.

There are towns called Devon in Canada (in Alberta and Ontario), and in the United States of America (in Montana); and there are about 40 other Plymouths throughout the world, including about 30 in the United States alone. Others are in Nova Scotia, Canada; Montserrat, where Plymouth was the capital until abandoned in 1997 after a volcanic eruption; and New Plymouth on North Island, New Zealand. There is a Devon River in central Scotland.

J.K. Rowling, who attended Exeter University, has in the Harry Potter books a family called Weasley who live at Ottery St Catchpole, believed to be based on Ottery St Mary.

The Church of St Nectan, Hartland, sometimes called the Cathedral of North Devon, has the county’s tallest church tower, 128ft. Built probably in the fourteenth century, it has also served as a navigational aid for ships.

A survey in 2006 conducted by UKTV Style Gardens channel asked for counties to be ranked according to their countryside, villages and wildlife. North Yorkshire came top of the poll with 31.3 per cent of the votes, Devon second with 21.7 per cent – comfortably ahead of Derbyshire, third with 10 per cent. Moreover, in surveys of Britain’s 50 grimmest towns and cities (oh, all right, ‘Crap Towns’), based on factors such as the crime rate, unemployment and lack of facilities, those in Devon have been conspicuously absent.

The title Duke of Devonshire is held by the Cavendish family, whose estates are in Derbyshire. In medieval times the title had been held by the de Redvers family and then by the Courtenay family. William Courtenay, 1st Earl of Devon, married Princess Katherine of York, a younger daughter of King Edward IV. Their son was made Marquess of Exeter, but he was executed for treason in 1539 and his only son died in 1556, of syphilis according to some, and poisoned according to others. The latter was childless, and the peerage thus became vacant. The Cavendish family therefore chose the name of Devonshire in the English peerage as they wanted to align themselves with one of the oldest families in England, and there was already an earldom of Derby in existence.

DEVON BLUE PLAQUES

Unlike London, Devon does not have a fully coordinated system of blue plaques, but several towns and areas of the county have individual blue plaques commemorating specific people and places. The following is a selection for those to be seen in each city or town

Exmouth

Manchester House, Imperial Road, formerly home of Mary Anne Clarke, mistress to Frederick, Duke of York, second son of King George III.

Sir John Colleton, who introduced a new species of flowering shrub to England from South Carolina, Magnolia Grandiflora Exmouthiensis, adopted as the flower for Exmouth; he had a mansion, Elm Cottage, in Exeter Road, close to the public library. Conrad Martens, artist on the Beagle with Charles Darwin, who subsequently settled in Australia, also on the library.

Primrose Cottage, North Street, last remaining thatched cottage in the town centre.

Assembly Rooms, The Beacon, centre of social life in the town during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Manor Hotel, The Beacon, where composer Franz Liszt gave a recital in 1840.

Deer Leap, The Esplanade, nineteenth-century bath house.

Lieutenant Richard Sandford, 15 The Beacon, First World War submariner who took part in St George’s Day raid on Zeebrugge.

Dolforgan Court, Louisa Terrace, home of Charlotte Anne Hume Long, founder of Exmouth’s first hospital in 1884.

Tiverton

Bridge Street (No. 10), where dramatist Hannah Cowley lived from 1801 to 1809.

Fore Street and Bampton Street junction, where Lord Palmerston gave election addresses from one of the windows.

St Peter Street (Nos 48/50), where John Heathcoat, founder of the town’s lace-making industry, lived from 1817 to 1832.

Torquay

The Rainbow, home of Ella Rowcroft, daughter of Sir Edward Payson Wills of Imperial Tobacco fame, she was the main contributor to the medical facilities of the English Riviera, and left her home Pilmuir in trust as a convalescent home, now Rowcroft Hospice.

Torquay Market, one of the largest and oldest in the town.

Madrepole Place, the town’s first school, built in 1826.

Drum Inn, Cockington, built by Sir Edwin Lutyens and completed in 1936.

Torquay’s First Methodist Church, the site of an eight-cottage terrace, two of which were used from 1807 as the first Methodist Church in the town.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning came to Torquay in 1838 to recuperate afters illness and stayed at what is today The Hotel Regina, Victoria Parade.

Cleave Court, later Riviera Court, home of writer Beverley Nichols from 1913 to 1924.

The Revd John MacEnery, brought to Torquay to be chaplain to the Cary family, first to record evidence of prehistoric man.

William Pengelly, teacher, lecturer, geologist and philanthropist, who spent fifteen years excavating Kents Cavern.

Orestone, home of John Calcott Horsley, brother-in-law to Isambard K. Brunel, artist and designer of the world’s first Christmas card.

Abbey Hall, Torquay’s first grammar school, originally opened as a Teachers’ Centre in 1904.

Meadfoot House, Hesketh Crescent, leased to Charles Darwin and his family during the summer of 1861.

Paignton

Bijou Theatre, famous for the world premiere of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, plaque on the side of Hyde Road (see p. 27).

Oldway Mansion, former home of Washington M. Singer, of the Singer sewing machine family. Built in about 1870 as a private residence, Steartfield House, Steartfield Road, became the family home of Washington, second son of Isaac, founder of the Singer Sewing Machine Company, rebuilt by his third son Paris Singer in the style of the Palace at Versailles.

Primley House, home of Herbert Whitley, founder of Paignton Zoo.

Redcliffe, once home of Col Robert Smith, who had a vision for Redcliffe, completed in 1864 and today is the Redcliffe Hotel on Paignton’s seafront. This unique building has a tunnel to the beach.

Bishops Place Cottages, built by I.K. Brunel to house his railway company doctor, engineer, architect/surveyor and chief buyer. The doctor was based at No. 1 and 150 years on it is still a medical practice.

Brixham

Berry Head House, home of the Revd Henry Lyte, Vicar of All Saints Church, who wrote ‘Abide with Me’ (see pp. 25–6). The house is now the Berry Head Hotel.

Vale House, Galmpton, home of Robert Graves, novelist and poet, in the Second World War.

Berry Head Road, where Sir James Callaghan, former Prime Minister, lived as a boy in the 1920s when his father was a coastguard in the town.

Tavistock

The Tavy Foundry

Victorian Cemetery

Pannier Market

Bedford Hotel

Guildhall

Bedford Hotel

Ordulph Arms

Dartmouth

Theodore Veale, Royal Avenue Gardens, Victoria Cross winner for most conspicuous bravery during the Battle of the Somme, 1916.

John Davis, explorer (see p. 171), Dartmouth Quay.

Dartmouth Castle, fortalice, or remains of a fourteenth-century curtain wall and tower from a small fort.

Flora Thompson, Lauriston, on the house where she came to stay in 1940 and completed her novels Over to Candleford, Candleford Green and Still Glides the Stream.

Exeter

Peter Hennis (see p. 63), plaque outside the graveyard at Sidwell Street, where he is buried.

W.G. Hoskins (see p. 49), plaque on the house at St David’s Hill, where he was born.

Budleigh Salterton

Sir John Everett Millais, The Octagon, on a house where he stayed in 1870 while painting ‘The Boyhood of Raleigh’.

Sidmouth

Beach House

Royal York Hotel

Sidmouth Lifeboat Station

Plymouth

Captain F.J. Walker, Hoegate Street, Captain in the Royal Navy, reckoned as most successful anti-submarine warfare commander during the Battle of the Atlantic.

TWELVE MAJOR BOOKS ABOUT DEVON

Of the wealth of titles written and published about the county, these twelve titles published during the last half century on various aspects should provide a comprehensive and reasonably up-to-date guide.

Burton, S.H., Devon Villages, Robert Hale, 1973

Burton, S.H., Exmoor, Robert Hale, 1974

Gill, Crispin, Plymouth:

A New History, Devon Books, 1993

Goodall, Felicity, Lost Devon, Birlinn, 2007

Gordon, D. St Leger, Devon, Robert Hale, 1977

Harris, Helen, Industrial Archaeology of Dartmoor, David & Charles, 1968

Hemery, Eric, High Dartmoor, David & Charles, 1983

Hoskins, W.G., Devon, Devon Books, 1992

Le Messurier, Brian, Dartmoor Artists, Halsgrove, 2002

Lethbridge, Tony, Exeter: History and Guide, Tempus, 2005

Minchinton, W.E., Devon at Work, David & Charles, 1974

Stanes, Robin, A History of Devon, Phillimore, 1986