Part 1 – Buckland Abbey to Grenofen Bridge
This is the first of two blog posts following a route between Buckland Abbey and Tavistock Abbey. This first leg looks at the section passing through Buckland Monachorum and on to Grenofen. 3 Miles.
A Forgotten Abbot’s Way: Grenofen to Tavistock (Part 2)
Background
As a local to this neck-of-the-woods, I have long been aware of the omission of the route bewteen Buckland and Tavistock in local writing about monastery-to-monastery roads, the Abott’s Way being the most celebrated of these. I don’t want to get into the details of the Abbot’s Way here [Legendary Dartmoor is great if you want to know more], but suffice to say the name ‘Abbot’s Way’ is a modern term for the trans-moor routes that existed is the past, used for all sorts of purposes, and not just by monks. Part of the Abbot’s Way is marked on the OS map. Books and guides will often feature the route between Buckfast Abbey and Tavistock Abbey, which is the best known of these ‘monk paths’. Hemery (1986) gives the most comprehensive coverage of the inter-monastic trackways. He covers Buckfast to Tavistock, Buckfast to Buckland, Plympton to Tavistock, Plympton to Buckland and Plympton to Buckfast. But what about Buckland to Tavistock? Perhaps it is left out because it only just clips the edge of Dartmoor and besides, you just can’t cover everything can you? In the corpus of material on walks in this area, I haven’t come across any other authors writing about it. So, to address the dearth of discussion of this ancient route I wanted to give it some attention.
Before we get into the interesting things along this path, it is useful to consider the context of these monkish tracks – the what and why and how of their existence. Throughout the medieval period, up until Henry VIII dismantled them in the late 1530s, the monasteries were some of the most powerful entities in society and the economy. As such, monasteries did not exist as remote islands of power but in interconnected ways within their local communities, with nearby towns and with other monasteries. As Eddie Proctor puts it:
Monastic houses would have required a network of paths and lanes for the movement of stock, produce, people, and goods to and from geographically spread estates, farms and satellites, provincial markets, neighbouring monastic and secular nodes, and so forth. They were also a focus for the regular movement of monks, ecclesiastical officials and high-status dignitaries, traders and other visitors and travellers who would need to follow such routes. Pilgrims, the poor seeking charity and other more workaday movement would have added to the ebb and flow.
Procter, 2019, p61
Imagining all of these people – abbots, monks and all-and-sundry – with their multiple purposes, we can see how trackways would have been well used. The route between the Buckland and Tavistock would no doubt of existed prior to the foundation of the abbeys, but their presence would certainly have upped the foot-fall.
Gill (1968) includes a map of Buckland Abbey, showing the extent of its boundaries and estates, and of relevance here, the main medieval roads, including that between Buckland and Tavistock. Gill’s book, a thorough examination of the documents that survive in the abbey’s records, provides further evidence for this road, citing charters that tell us about the medieval road network.
Still in use after the dissolution of the monasteries, the route may have been a little less busy. Mining in the Walkham Valley -possibly from the Elizabethan era, and definitely in the 18th and 19th centuries – would have caused traffic. However, from the 1850s mining declined. With the undoubtedly better quality Tavistock-Yelverton-Plymouth turnpike road of 1812, and Victorian innovations in transport, the route fell out of function. Most of it still exists but as minor tarmac roads. Only the middle portion across Buckland Down between Long Ash and Grenofen Bridge remains as a muddy and stony holloway.
Most of the route is accessible but there is a small portion between Buckland Monachrorum Village and Buckland Abbey that I don’t think follows the modern road/footpath system. It would make sense to me that the original route would have come up Buckland Monachorum hill, crossed directly over the modern road into the fields directly ahead, passing Crapstone Barton and from there to the abbey (see the annotated map).
As can be seen from this Victorian map, there used to be a route this way, with the track emerging at a dwelling shown on the modern OS map as the intriguingly named ‘Gate Cottage’. Gate Cottage has mullioned windows and is clearly of some considerable age. I assume it was a gatehouse to the manor at Crapstone Barton. This opinion on the location of the old road following this route is supported by Hamilton-Leggett (2002) who writes:
The village street led from the church, over the brook and up the hill to the fields of Crapstone Barton and the abbey.
Hamilton-Leggett (2002, p19)
Modern ideas of privacy and private property were not the same in medieval and Tudor England as they are today. Traffic would almost certainly have both passed, and been generated by, the manor house at Crapstone Barton, which belonged to the lord of the manor of Buckland parish. However, in more recent centuries, fields and commons were enclosed by the wealthy. This changed attitudes to private property, stripped people of common ground, and altered where they could go and travel. I suspect that the enclosure movement is responsible for this route to the abbey being shifted to the west, diverting travellers and traffic around the outskirts of the Barton fields. Today there is no right of way along this route. It is long gone. The road that goes to Crapstone Barton is a private no-through-road with no access or footpath beyond. When walking along the road we can take glimpses through gates and across the fields towards Crapstone Barton, stopping to imagine the Tudor manor, and a possible more ancient manor before that, with the monastic and agrarian traffic about its daily flow.
7 Interesting Things
1. Buckland Abbey
The Cistercian abbey at Buckland was relatively late to the monastic party, being founded in 1278 by Lady Amicia, Countess of Devon. You don’t get many women called Amicia’s nowadays do you? Or even over the last 700 years for that matter! The Cistercians (the white monks) were a breakaway movement from the Benedictines (the black monks) . Disillusioned by how the Benedictine’s had drifted from the teaching of St Benedict, the Cistercians advocated poverty, chastity and obedience. They favoured remote locations and worked their own lands to sustain themselves, in contrast the the Benedictines, who lived off gifts and from the profits (and the backs!) of those who worked their manors and lands (Gill, 1968). Buckland Abbey accepted from Amicia the extensive manors of Buckland, Walkhampton and Bickleigh and it presided over the chapel at Sheepstor. The Abbot also became lord of the Hundreds of Roborough. This, sizeable dominion can be seen on the Gill map above.
There is so much that can be said about Buckland Abbey – the monastic history, Sir Francis Drake and all that. However, I am going to keep focused on our ancient routeway and the landscape through which it passed. You won’t be able to see it from ground level but take a look at an OS map of the area around the abbey. Look at the fields? What do you notice about their size? In about a 1km radius they are much bigger than those in the land beyond. Here we may see reflected in the modern landscape the farming management practices of the Cistercians, locked into our current landscape.
I will let Eddie Proctor explain:
‘Monasteries might create deserts in order to have a place of withdrawal, as the Cistercians were accused of doing in twelfth-century England’. Such manipulation of the landscape to provide secluded space included the reorganisation of estates and land-use, for instance to create consolidated blocks of arable fields or the draining of marshland, and could lead in practice to desertion (forced or otherwise) by former inhabitants’
Proctor, E. (2016).
When I walked this route I looked out across the fields and noticed their large size. Instead of the monks, I considered that this was a result of modern farming, and the post war grubbing up of hedgerows. I think I need to reconsider. These large fields are the same on older OS maps, not just the current ones. This is no modern field system, but a monastic legacy of monk-farmed land.
2. Buckland Monachorum
Boc Lond has a deep history, it’s name meaning charter-land, – an estate with certain rights and privileges created in Anglo-Saxon times by royal diploma. Within 10 years of the founding of the Abbey, according to Gill, the village was being referred to as Buckland Monachrorum and within it’s history has also gone by the appellations Buckland Drake, Buckland Crymes (after a Tudor manorial family), Buckland Churchtown and Buckland Town. The name Boc Lond is even inscribed into the granite Siward’s or Nun’s Cross, marking the eastern edge of the monastery estate.
The village seems to have benefitted from the coming of the abbey as in 1317 it was granted permission to hold a market every Tuesday and a three day fair starting on Trinity Monday, approximately seven weeks after Easter. This would therefore have been a May fair. Hamilton-Leggett (2002) describes droves of cattle being driven to the fair, backing up the lanes in bovine traffic jams. She continues:
Stallholders were packed into corners, street sellers plied their wares and games and boxing matches were held in the fields.
The last cattle fair was held in 1867 with the market lasting until 1883. I assume a remnant of this fair still takes place today called the June Fair. I haven’t been for years but as a child I remember going every year in the 70s and 80s; dancing my little socks off in front of the church, dressed in a gingham skirt, to folk music played by Geoff Lakeman and his fellow musicians.
3. Ogham Stones
I feel a bit unfair talking with you here about the Ogham stones. Sadly the Ogham stones found in Buckland parish have been moved to Tavistock. Not to worry, you might think, I will look at it when I get to the other end of the walk. Unfortunately, unless you ask the vicar nicely, that won’t be possible either, because the said Oghams are in the private vicarage garden.
So why are you talking about Ogham stones if we can’t see them, and what the hell is an Ogham anyway you are probably wondering!
Ogham is an alphabet that was used to write Old Irish script on monuments, typically in the 4th to 6th centuries. An Ogham stone is therefore a stone that has been carved with Ogham writing, but these are often inscribed with Latin as well. Only 11 Ogham stones have been found in the whole of England with nine of these in Cornwall and West Devon. And to put it in even further perspective, two of these have been found in Buckland Monachorum parish. To my mind, that makes Buckland Monachorum a pretty exceptional area.
One of the Ogham stones was found in the old blacksmith’s shop in 1804 and was inscribed “SABINI FILI MACCODECHETI” which means (the stone of) Sabinus, the son of Maccodechetus. The other one was also found in 1797 by Polwhele and later by the Rev Bray in 1834 being used as a gatepost in the parish on the edge of Roborough Down. The precise location is not known. This one reads “DOBUNNI FABRI FILII ENABARRI” meaning (the stone of) Dobunnus the Smith, the son of Enabarrus. Perhaps these Oghams are examples of the ancient stones mentioned in the medieval abbey records?
It was well-ordered countryside of established boundaries, marked in places by ditches or stones, set up long enough ago to be called ‘old’ and even ‘ancient’ in these thirteenth century documents.
Gill, 1968, p17
In Ireland, where Oghams are more prolific, they are mainly associated with burials but also used as boundary markers and as memorials, typically along trackways. As the centuries have ticked by, these stones have often been moved from their original locations and repurposed. But their size means they probably won’t have travelled far. The Buckland Oghams are a fascinating glimpse into the Celtic dark ages – a time post-Roman and pre-Saxon. For me the Oghams signify that Buckland’s spiritual heritage doesn’t begin with the founding of the abbey, and that there is something special about this place that goes deeper into time.
4. Buckland Down
A detailed survey – a labour of love – was conducted of Buckland Down by the passionate amateur archaeologist Alan Rowe (1999) , who spent a decade in fieldwork, walking back and forth, recording the banks, holloways, trenches, tracks, and ancient farmsteads of the down. Rowe pays homage to all the undulations, chronicling 4000 years of habitation and industry. Sticking only to the corridor of our route to Grenofen Bridge, Rowe encourages us to observe the old holloway that runs first on our left for 300m, becomes indistinct, then meanders across our path to the right before disappearing down-slope as it steepens into the Walkham Valley.
Rowe also found evidence of ridge-and-furrow (to our right as we walk). This is significant because common land would not usually have been ploughed but used ‘in common’ for grazing and taking heather and gorse for bedding and fodder. He cites documentary evidence from nearby parishes of temporary appropriation of common land for farmsteads in the 12th to 14th centuries. Decimation of populations by the plague may very well have been responsible for these falling back out of use. I am looking forward to returning, and will take time to stray from the path, using my new found knowledge, and Rowe’s hand-drawn map, to feel the history of the humps and bumps under my feet.
5. Mining – Walkham and Poldice Mine
Our path descends, declivitously, into the woods. The surface morphs from mud to loose stone. In places, bedrock. In fact, these woods are called Sticklepath Wood – Sticklepath meaning a steep path, from the Saxon ‘staecle’, meaning steep.
Here the subtle undulations of the down are replaced by the more pronounced topography of industrially worked ground – the vegetated and wooded gerts of open cast mineral excavation. In this location the mineral being sought is copper. The Walkham Valley along this reach from upstream Horrabridge to downstream Denham Bridge, is be-speckled with copper mines dating to the 18th and 19th centuries. Straddling our route is the copper mine Walkham and Poldice Mine or Walkham United Mine as it is also known. According to Rendell (1996) this mine was only a small affair and didn’t start up until 1865 and closed by 1890.
Maps show lots of surface disturbance and Rendell confirms that most of the lodes here were taken out by openworks but there was a shallow shaft as well. Little remains of the buildings but apparently a wheel pit can be seen, although I didn’t look for it. Rendell suggests that the mine here is on the site of an earlier tin work called Poldice and recorded in 1717 and the site may have been used still earlier. Given how disturbed this hillside is down to the river I would have thought there is truth in this. This valley, and the downland above, was known from ancient records to have been been explored and excavated for tin (Rowe, 1999) and there were also elvan quarries here, elvan being a fine grained igneous rock much favoured for building.
6. The Lost Fulling Mill
Rowe (1999, p59) tells us of a fulling mill on the Walkham at Grenofen Bridge, being in operation at least from mid 15th C until 19th C. Fulling is the process of shrinking woollen cloth to make it thicker – and therefore warmer and more durable – by using moisture, heat, friction and pressure. I can’t see the fulling mill on any maps, nor anyone apart from Rowe who mentions it. Perhaps its ruined walls have been engulfed by all the mining activity? Not even the comprehensive records of Historic England or the Heritage Gateway have it listed. Its footprint seems to have been obliterated by subsequent activity, but perhaps there is evidence of the fulling mill waiting to be discovered?
7. Grenofen Bridge
The narrow and low-sided little Grenofen Bridge went by the name Sticklepath Bridge until as late at the 19th C. This I didn’t know. This Bedford Estate map (c1760), reproduced in Hemery (1986) shows a route, heading south out of Tavistock (I have rotated the map to make reading the annotation easier), and it was labelled ‘Road to Plymouth by Sticklepath’.
At the time I couldn’t work out what this related to, but now I know! It shows a road out of Tavistock, heading to Plymouth which must be via Grenofen (Sticklepath) Bridge. It follows a different route between Tavistock and Grenofen to the one we are discussing here, making use of the crossing at West Bridge and heading to Grenofen, similar in line to the current A386 main road. West Bridge wasn’t built until the 16th C (Woodcock, 2008, p55) , replacing a ford. Our medieval travellers would have therefore favoured the route we are walking, making use of the medieval Great Bridge near the abbey. To me, this map’s significance lies in the evidencing of an important main road to Plymouth via Grenofen Bridge. Today, nobody would ever dream of travelling to Plymouth this way – the road over Grenofen Bridge ends in a muddy car-park now. But, pre-turnpikes, this direct overland route was clearly an important road.
Not much is known about the bridge, although I do wonder what mentions lie in the medieval records of Buckland Abbey relating to its upkeep. The current bridge is certainly old. Its size and the fact that it is on a redundant route help to tell us that. Leave the track and stand on the sandy gravel beach aside the bridge. You will see different strata of masonry in its composition, hinting at previous repaired incarnations, built upon into its current modest form. How long has a bridge been here? Certainly from 13th C because of the abbey traffic, but I would wager long before. Maybe a wooden Saxon of Celtic bridge? Who knows? It is long gone.
For Part 2 of this walk go to – A Forgotten Abbot’s Way: Grenofen to Tavistock (Part 2)
Route
- Join the public footpath that runs passed Buckland Abbey and walk north towards Buckland Monachorum. This path exits via a metal kissing gate onto the road.
- Continue north to Buckland along the road. Notice Gate Cottage and views over the fields to your right towards Crapstone Barton.
- At the T Junction turn right and then descend left down the hill of the village. There are so many historic buildings to be seen as you walk through the village.
- Continue past the church and the primary school then, at the roundabout take the first exit then
- Take the road right at Netherton, passing Whitehall on your right and continue north on this road until you get to a cattle grid where the road turns into a downland track.
- Continue straight ahead. The path with be variously muddy then stony and will start off on a gentle slope but get increasingly steep. Rowe suggests that just after the cattle grid there may be evidence of ridge and furrow to our right if you want to explore. Also look to the left of the path for the old holloway and see if you can trace its course which becomes indistinct and then crosses to the right of the path before being lost where the path steepens.
- Descend the steep, deeply incised path downhill to Grenofen Bridge.
This walk continues in Part 2 from Grenofen on to Tavistock Abbey.
References
ARCHI Old Maps. https://www.archiuk.com/
Gill, C. (1968). Buckland Abbey. Underhill: Plymouth.
Hamilton-Leggett, P. (2002). The Book of Buckland Monachorum and Yelverton. Halsgrove: Tiverton.
Hemery, E. (1986). Walking Dartmoor’s Ancient Tracks: A Guide to 28 Routes. Robert Hale: London.
Historic England (undated) Inscribed stones in vicarage garden. https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1003871
Proctor, E. (2016). PhD research paper #2. The study of monastic landscapes. Landscapism Blog. http://landscapism.blogspot.com/2016/01/phd-research-paper-2-study-of-monastic.html
Procter, E. (2019) The path to the monastery: monastic communication networks in the southern Welsh Marches, Landscape History, 40:1, 59-70.
Rendell, P. (1996). Exploring the Lower Walkham Valley. Forest Publishing: Newton Abbot.
Rowe, A. (1999). Buckland Monachorum: A West Devon down and its history. Peter Howell & Co: Plymouth.
Woodcock, G. (2008). Tavistock: A History. Phillimore &Co LTD: Chichester.
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