Hemery’s ‘Walking Dartmoor’s Ancient Tracks: A guide to 28 routes’, Track 11. This section is from Nodden Gate to Meldon. 4.25 miles
Background
Post-boys were required to pay a fine to any parish poor-box if they were found napping and so the horn became the taskmaster of the poor post-boy. He knew that any cessation of its sound might bring out idlers from the nearest hamlet to see if they could catch him napping. So he blew, and continued to blow, long, loud and virtuously.
In my previous blog about the King Way (Part 2- Blackdown to Nodden Gate) I tried to give a potted explanation of the post system in relation to this route and linked to the history of highwaymen and the presence of Gibbet Hill. At the time of writing I had only just acquired a gem of a book by Crofts (1967) called ‘Packhorse, Waggon and Post’ and had not had much time to do anything other than skim it. In this blog I am therefore going to revisit in a little more detail some of the workings of the postal system from the point of view of the post-masters and post-boys on this sub-route to Tavistock with the help of this book.
As a consequence of the postal system morphing from one of messengers, sent by the rich and powerful, who accompanied the letter its entire journey, to that of a person responsible for receiving and forwarding mail at a relay post, the duties of those involved in letter-delivery changed. No longer was the role one requiring transit themselves. Their role became fixed to a place. They could not leave their ‘post’ as they had to be the person who rapidly provisioned horses and provided food, drink and lodging to the carriers ‘to tarry‘ if required. As the King’s messengers became Posts it is therefore easy to see that they also acquired the dual role of inn-keeper. As they could not leave their post, they employed post-boys to do the riding. The consequence of this in societal terms is a down-grading of the role of messenger from that of an important and trusted servant to a ‘boy’ of low status and pay. In the early years of our King Way route there would have been a post-master in Okehampton as this was on a main postal line to Launceston and on through Cornwall. Tavistock, from what I can gather, acquired a Post in 1720 and, as the distance from Okehampton to Tavistock is relatively short, there would be no posts in between, although I imagine the post-boys sometimes had need to visit inns along the way.
Post-boys did not wear a uniform as such and in literature they are apparently characterised as ‘ill-equipped ragamuffins‘. A messenger from the royal chamber would be equipped with a despatch box that carried the royal arms whereas the humble post-boy would only have a bag and his horn. They also had distinctive boots as modelled by the young man in the photograph below. These were difficult to walk in let alone run so, should the post-boy meet with any trouble, it was wise for him to kick them off before making a dash for it.
The horn had a very important role and the regulations around it issued down to the posts became more and more strict . When the post service first appeared in the early 16th C the post-boy was only required to blow the horn ‘at town’s end‘ as a warning to the next post to saddle up. This never worked well and so the powers that be in the Queen’s Council decided that instead the post-boy should blow his horn at all times on the road if he met someone in order that other road users give way, and also four times in every mile. Post-boys were required to pay a fine to any parish poor-box if they were found napping and so Crofts makes the point that the horn became the taskmaster of the poor post-boy …
“he knew that any cessation of its sound might bring out idlers from the nearest hamlet to see if they could catch him napping. So he blew, and continued to blow, long, loud and virtuously”
Crofts, 1967, p73
Post-masters were required to keep two leather bags lined with good cotton or baize to carry the bye-letters and pacquets and these were to be kept ‘clean and unbroken‘. Pacquets were more important and came with an official seal of authority that must not be broken and which must be dispatched within 15 minutes, whereas bye-letters were less important and had to wait until an official ‘Pacquet’ came along before they could be dispatched. This meant that on some stretches (presumably away from the SE and its seat of government), bye-letters could lie dormant for many days and this led to significant inefficiencies.
In receiving the post the Post-master had to note and sign on the outside of the pacquet the date and time and also record this information in his ledger. Crofts explains that records from this time show the ‘evidently excruciating difficulty‘ some of the post-masters had in making their marks. Illiteracy is further illustrated in relation to the urgent pacquets on which had been written ‘Hast, Post, hast, for thie lieff, lieff, lieff‘. From the early inception of the post, historical records show that it was common instead to draw a rough sketch of the gallows and a swinging man in order to get the message across to the illiterate post-boy which of the letters in his bag were urgent.
In the next and final blog about this route I will return to Crofts to explain how the ramshackle regulations and economics of the post service were clearly not designed by the entrepreneurially minded and discuss how advances in the road system led to the demise of this horse-mounted post system and therefore the King Way route. For now I am going to leave with a quote from Crofts who vividly captures a sense of the landscape and working conditions for the post-boys between Okehampton and Tavistock. The theme of the gibbet that I spoke about in the last blog is raised, but Crofts, talking about the speeds ridden, conveys just how uncomfortable and frightening the post-boy’s lot was, particularly when riding at night.
“But it is to remembered that it [4.6 miles per hour] is an average, based on computed, not measured, miles, maintained over long distances, by night as well as by day, through a country entirely unlit after dark, and along roads which, when not pestered with sloughs or loose stones, often dwindled over heaths and open farmland into a vague uncharted right of way. A post boy benighted in such country might spend miserable hours dismounting to feel for cart ruts , turning his coat inside out to defeat Robin Goodfellow, listening for the murmmer of a remembered brook of the clinking chains of a never to be forgotten gibbet; and it would not be until the blessed sun rose upon him that he would become once more his habitual self: ‘a ragged villain, all bemired, upon a poor lean jade, riding and blowing for life’.”
Crofts, 1967, p88
The ride between Nodden Gate and Meldon is through open country and in places the route would have been indistinct. However, whereas Blackdown is a featureless sweep of moor, the scenery here has more in the way of landmarks. The King Wall itself provided reassuring accompaniment and direction for a helpful portion. In places where the going was soft the route can be observed hollowed out but over the harder dry ground over the ridge at Sourton Tors the exact path is less imprinted but the characteristic shapes of the tors and Great Nodden (known to as Plum Pudding Hill) help to landmark the way. This length is the last of the route that covers open moor. In the final walk from Meldon to Okehampton the King Way once more enters enclosed and populated country and journey’s end.
7 Interesting Things
1. The King Wall
There are a handful of walls on Dartmoor that get their own name and the King Wall is one of them. The current stonework looks like it was mostly constructed in the last few centuries but Fleming (1988) considers that this stretch of nearly 4km to be much older as it forms the boundaries of three parishes – Sourton, Bridestowe and Lydford. He says that:
‘I feel the King Wall must have started life as a reave, yet despite an assiduous search for evidence, looking closely at the base of the wall and in gateways, I have been unable so far to prove it; the original character of the boundary seems to have been completely masked by its successors’
Fleming, 1988, p46
It is thought the wall got its current name because it kept the King’s messengers and post-boys company along this lengthy stretch of moorland route. No doubt it was of much benefit in guiding the way in this open country. As recently as 2010 a section of early medieval cross shaft was found, sticking out of the wall, carved on one face with a Greek-style cross in relief. In 2011 it was re-erected in a new socket where it was discovered, in the wall near Crandford Brook (Heritage Gateway). I am kicking myself for not seeing this cross when I walked by, however, it was hailing the day I visited so I was probably retreating deep inside my hood.
2. Great Nodden
Great Nodden is an idiosyncratic geomorphological companion to the King Way. With its steep rounded shape it was also historically known as Plum-Pudding Hill (Crossing, 1990). Hemery (1983) says that ‘Noddon’ is likely to be a corruption of ‘North Down’ relating to the high ridge of this location. I have stumbled on another potential explanation. In Googling for a citation for Great Nodden’s nick-name I discovered that in Lancashire there is a food called a Nodding Pudding, also known as a Nodden Pudding. This particular pudding is a potato layer cake and it turns out that the nodden bit of the name relates to Middle English ‘knōden, knō̆dden‘ (Middle English Compendium) which means kneaded. So there we have it – Great Nodden is not just nick-named after food, but its actual name is very likely related to food in a much more direct way than any of us had realised.
3. Commons
The summer grazing of livestock on the common land of Dartmoor is a long standing relationship and Harold Fox (2012) talks of the evidence for common rights on the moor being exercised as least as early as the 10th century. The Duchy are the landlord of the central ‘forest’ of Dartmoor but there are many other downs that ring the moor that are manorial Commons of Devon, although the Duchy also used to own Peter Tavy, Bridestowe, Sourton, Okehampton Hamplets, Belstone, and South Tawton (Mercer, 2009).
The commons were not just used by local commoners but were part of a wider agricultural system of summering lowland livestock on the moorland and downlands, from which the ‘uplanders’ might benefit:
“Other agisters [Agisting is the allowing of stock to be grazed for a fee – ‘agiste’ being an Anglo-Norman word for lodging] and of course the lords of the manor who owned the commons of Devon or the parcels of manorial waste, their foremen, reeves and commoners, all had a slice of the action, overseeing lowland visiting stock alongside their own”
Mercer, 2009, p278
This little slice of NW Dartmoor is a nice example of the association between manors/farmsteads and their common land as evidenced in the pairing of the names on the map.
4. White Pebbles
Topping out on the ridge below the Sourton Tors the ground is firm and any sign of a path indistinct, with the stiff soil limiting foot and hoof imprint. Here I found laid a line of white pebbles, set at generous intervals. I counted twenty five but there may have been more; others may have been pocketed by passers by. The bright white rocks gleamed and drew attention. They could not not be seen. I caught another glimmer, but in my mind; a vague recollection of reading about something similar, almost certainly in the work of Robert McFarlane. Hunting for more information I found the research of Darvill who writes of ‘white quartz pebbles deposited by prehistoric and Christian pilgrims alike in Atlantic Europe‘ (Darvill, 2016). These particular purposeful pebbles were placed by a modern hand; a playful and creative person having fun with landscape. But they did their job. They made me look, they made me smile, they marked my way, and they made me think.
5. Ice-works
The King’s posts would not have seen the ice-works as they cantered close to Sourton Tors at a false gallop as this ice factory was a Victorian enterprise, but today the large earthworks revetments are hard to miss. This Sourton location was chosen as it was close to Bridestowe station, north-facing, spring fed with fresh water and had a climate of regular snow and ice conditions in the winter (Harris, 1992). But the Goldilocks effect of being ‘just right’ was not a reality. In the short years it was open (winter 1875 to 1886) winters were either too hot and resulted in limited ice production or winters were too cold which hampered access and transport. The Sourton ice-works is considered of national importance as very few such industrial sites ever existed and fewer still have survived (Historic England, 2001).
The ice-works operated by using a system of leats and pipes, bringing the water from the spring to 32 ponds – segmented pools housed within six terraces of varying length (45-150m) and width (9.4 to 17.6m). In the winter the ice froze and it was cut and stored in a sub-terranean building, insulated with peat turfs to protect from outside warmth. The daughter of a former employee describes taking pasties to her father in the summer months and the cold, on approaching the entrance to the ice store, as taking the breath away (Harris, 1992). Harris also relays a contemporary observation of the ice-works written up in the Mining Journal (12/2/1876) by a Mr Henderson who describes the ponds as creating a chessboard appearance on the hillside.
The ice-works provided ice for urbanising populations and their markets who needed it to keep perishables foods fresh. In particular it was intended for Plymouth fish exporters although some was also sold for domestic purposes. The ice-works represent an opportunistic chink in time in a decade between the roll out of rail along this western flank of the moor and commercial developments in refrigeration technology which pay to any hope that this luckless enterprise had of success.
6. Ridge and Furrow
Unlike the English midlands or the run-rigs of the highlands and islands, Dartmoor is not a landscape abounding with ridge-and-furrow. Here and there on peripheral downlands there are occasional hints, often hidden below bracken and furze. Along this King Way route is a good and rare Dartmoor example.
Ridge-and-furrow, formed by the repeated throwing up of soil by the plough to form a ridge, is not easy to date. The English Midlands examples are medieval but there are others from upland Northumberland that are thought to be prehistoric, whereas the run-rigs are later, being late medieval to 19th C (Historic England, 2011). During the Napoleonic crisis there was also a phase of arable cultivation that initiated ridge-and-furrow in uplands. So, what era does this example date to? Take your pick.
7. Drove Lane
In trying to understand the routeways and roads that I walk I have started reading about droveways and drifts to get my head around it all. I feel it is quite confusing. Using my book by Fox (2012) I can see that droveways are linked to the long distance movement of livestock whereas drifts are for short-distance movement to commons. In some parts of the countryside droving was about taking cattle on a one-time movement from rural areas to urban centres to provide a supply of food. In other instances long distance movement is related to transhumance – seasonal moving of cattle from lowland pasture to upland downs and moor and then back again in the winter. Over short distances from the manors and farms that ring the moor, livestock might be moved with regularity not just seasonally. For Dartmoor, the local and regional agricultural practices mean there is no simplistic road function and there is a blurring in use; some moorland peripheral tracks are used for both.
This particular stretch of the King Way, as I walked from the open moor of Sourton Tors into the enclosed fields of Prewley, is different from the other parts I had walked. The route had boundaries but was a grassy, wide and roomy track; width and grass being features of droveways to prevent congestion and provide grazing en-route. What makes this stretch particularly interesting is that most such droving routes have a directness “always penetrating to the heart of the forest” (in Fox, 2012, p194) but here it runs perpendicular, heading ‘around’ and not ‘in’. Local topography is probably responsible. The valley slopes are extremely steep in this Meldon reservoir area necessitating driving cattle around the obstacle of terrain and not through it.
The final blog of the route is The King Way Part 4: Meldon to Okehampton.
The Route
As with all the routes that I am following in Hemery (1986), he describes the finer details of the route and I advise consulting his writing for precise descriptions.
- From Nodden Gate head north, keeping the King Wall to your left (1). Look out for that cross that I missed.
- The pudding-like rounded slopes of Great Nodden overlook the King Way to the right as you walk north (2).
- Towards the end of the King Wall veer right and ascend up to join the Rattlebrook Peat Tramway, over the bridge and on this line for about 200 m.
- Leave the tramway to the left on a discernible path that traces roughly along an even contour heading north. By now you will be Lake Down (3)
- Traverse the ridge just below Sourton Tors. This is where I was treated to the playful white stones lining the way (4)
- The King Way passes very close to the Ice-works (5) on the northern flank of Sourton Tors.
- Descend NNE to the enclosed land. Here the path becomes more hollowed and distinct. Notice the examples of ridge-and-furrow to your right (6).
- The way becomes a wide lane that has all the spacious practicality of a drove route (7)
- At South Down stay left to take the path to Meldon. Here the path morphology changes abruptly to a narrow hollow-way lane, although LiDAR imaging hints at the old boundary flanking this route continuing beyond the modern hedge.
References
Crofts, J. (1967) . Packhorse, Waggon and Post: Land carrage and communications under the Tudors and Stuarts. Routledge and Kegan Paul: London.
Crossing, W. (1990). Crossing’s Guide to Dartmoor. Peninsula Press: Newton Abbot
Darvill, T., 2016. Roads to Stonehenge: A prehistoric healing centre and pilgrimage site in southern Britain.
Fleming, I. (1988) The Dartmoor Reaves: Investigating Prehistoric Land Divisions.B.T. Batsford Ltd: London.
Fox, H. (2012). Dartmoor’s Alluring Uplands: Transhumance and pastoral management in the Middle Ages.. University of Exeter Press: Exeter.
Gerrard, S. (1997). Dartmoor. B.T. Batsford / English Heritage: London.
Harris, H. (1992). The Industrial Archaeology of Dartmoor. Fourth Edition. David and Charles: Newton Abbot.
Hemery, E. (1983). High Dartmoor. Robert Hale: London.
Heritage Gateway. King’s Way Cross, Great Nodden, Bridestowe. www.heritagegateway.org.uk/
Historic England (2001). Iceworks at Sourton Tors. historicengland.co.uk
Historic England (2011). Field Systems: Introduction to Heritage Assets. historicengland.co.uk
Jones, A.M., 2008. Houses for the Dead and Cairns for the Living: A reconsideration of the early to middle Bronze Age transition in South-West England. Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 27(2), pp.153-174
Mercer, I. (2009). Dartmoor: A statement of its time. Collins: London.
Middle English Compendium. Knedan. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dictionary/
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