Part of Hemery’s ‘Walking Dartmoor’s Ancient Tracks: A guide to 28 routes’, Track 9 – Chagford to Plymouth Route
This section is from Princetown to Two Bridges. Approx 1.5 miles.
Part 3 – Trans-Dartmoor Packhorse Track: Part 3 – Goad’s Stone Pool to Princetown
Part 5 – Trans-Dartmoor Packhorse Track: Part 5 – Two Bridges to Postbridge
Background
I flick the kettle on and make myself a flask of coffee, then jump in the car. With all the effort of a flex of my accelerator foot and a slight clockwise and anticlockwise twist of my arms, the car, through a succession of pulls and swoops over the ribbon of tarmac, transports me up 1000 feet to Princetown. I park and tie the laces of my waterproof walking boots, pull on a lightweight thermal base-layer, and top it all off with a waterproof jacket and trousers. I am not expecting rain but the early spring breeze is bitter, and the waterproofs are weightless and windproof. In Princetown, because of the Covid lockdown, much is closed, but if I needed anything a grocery shop was open and I am sure I could have acquired a hot takeaway drink if I hadn’t brought my own.
I say all this for the juxtaposition. To contrast how very tough a journey across the central moor was in the 18th C or before, against how very easy it is now. Previously on this route I have walked from Roborough to Princetown. I have been through three villages (Yelverton, Dousland and Princetown) none of which existed 250 years ago. I have seen ice cream vans and cafes and pubs and shops. I have been passed by frequent vehicles and walkers and had the safety and security of people and places. If I was leading a team of packhorses on this route in the 18th C my experience would have been very different. I may have encountered the occasional herdsman, jobber or peddar but these would have been few and far between. For the most part I would have been on my own in a wide stretch of wilderness. The experience is well described by Burnard in 1905. In this extract he is talking about the packhorse route from Chagford to Tavistock but the circumstances would have been the same:
“Over this the wayfarer could only proceed on foot or on horseback … over a bleak and inhospitable moor. There was no place of public refreshment on the route unless deviations were made, or rest obtained at farmhouses, and these were few and far between. With the exception of Newhouse (now Warren House Inn), the two Merripits, and Hartland, the dreary wastes adjacent to the trackway were devoid of habitations … so that a journey undertaken in mid-winter must have been arduous and even dangerous in thick or snowy weather. In deep snow the track was easily lost, and a stranger would run the risk of losing his way and perishing of cold. “
Burnard 1905
Yes, the journey had things to recommend it in more clement weather, but the harsher winters of the past and frequent fog and rain were more common than not. I will therefore leave my introduction to this stretch of the packhorse route in the heart of the moor with another quote. This time it is from an anonymous author of 1855 visiting Dartmoor prison. The conversation he has with a prison official humorously conveys just how desolate this moorland realm felt, even after the habitation and improvement of ‘the wastes’ had begun.
As we gazed that morning on the lowering sky and the dismal landscape, and thought how well adapted the situation was for punitory purposes, the official who accompanied us said, as if it were a thing to be proud of, “We never see a sparrow here, sir!” and our admiration of the sagacity and good sense of the little bird referred to rose and increased exceedingly.
Anonymous (1855)
This is my last blog post on the Plymouth branch of the packhorse route. I am going to walk the Tavistock branch up to Two Bridges where these meet and then continue on to Chagford from there.
7 Interesting Things
1. Early Princetown
Up until the 19th C packhorses would have passed through the land which would become Princetown before it became ‘a place’. There was nothing her; just more moor, as evidenced by the lack of it on Donn’s map of 1765 (see below)
Then along came Thomas Tyrwhitt. Pejoratively known as ‘Clod’ Tyrwhitt at Eton and at Oxford as ‘the Squab Cupid”, presumably on account of his dumpy frame and smooth, ruddy complexion (Thorne, 1986), Tyrwhitt proved himself an entrepreneurial fellow. After first developing the farm estate at nearby Tor Royal in the late 18th C, amongst other schemes, he had Dartmoor Prison built (c.1805-09). This seeded Princetown as a growing hamlet, ‘with its turf smoke and its peat stacks‘ (Anonymous, 1853), which began to spread along the line of our packhorse route – the line of the Yelverton to Two Bridges Road.
In the 1823 Tyrwhitt opened the Plymouth and Dartmoor Railway/Tramway. The railway was supposed to transport not only granite from the quarries but also lime and peat between Princetown and Plymouth (Heritage Gateway, undateda). I can imagine, as it was being built, the packhorse men chewing over the potential threat this innovative railway posed, and wondering how it was going to impact their livelihoods. As it turned out, the tramway was not an economic flop and little was carried on it apart from granite.
The tithe map extract above shows the red line of the tramway sweeping across the square in the centre of Princetown, overlooked by what would become the Duchy Hotel, and sweeping across the road between the Plume of Feathers and the Railway Inn. It was behind the Railway Inn that the tramway terminated at the ‘wharf’, conveniently placed adjacent to the ‘market’, which was later supplanted by a methodist chapel on the corner of Tor Royal Lane.
2. The Plume of Feathers and The Railway Inn
Whilst Tyrwitt is the catalyst that brought Princetown to life, and the prison is the fuel that sustained it, the Plume of Feathers Inn is the nucleus; the embryo. The oldest building in Princetown of any substance, it was built in 1785 to house the workers that Tyrwhitt employed to develop his Tor Royal estate. Not only is it the oldest but it is also the most unusual (Heritage Gateway, undatedb). Its vernacular architectural style has been tentatively attributed to the foreign influences of Tyrwhitt. The outshuts on either side of the gabled wings, with their steeply sloping roofs, give the building its distinctive silhouette. These are not original and were added some time in the 19th C. How welcome this inn must have been to the pack horse traders when it appeared in this barren portion of the moor all those years ago.
The other early pub in Princetown was called The Railway Inn, mentioned above as the terminus for the tramway. Built 4 years after the tramway in 1827, this inn housed the horses pulling the carriages on the tram rails and a workshop for carrying out tram maintenance (Heritage Gateway, Undatedc).
3. The Duchy Hotel
Built as quarters for officers stationed as guards at the newly opened prison, the Duchy Hotel opened in 1809. Officers would have travelled to Princetown from Plymouth and this building was conveniently located adjacent to the Plymouth Road and set apart from the prison – a psychological distance of status; more lowly soldiers had barracks next to the prison. Initially busy housing both French and American prisoners of war, from 1815 peace meant the prison, the officers quarters, and the village in general, went into decline.
Recorded as empty in 1850 it was taken over by a man called James Julian Rowe who turned its fortunes rapidly. By 1852 it had gained a reputation as ‘the foremost hostelry on Dartmoor‘ (Heritage Gateway, undatedd) and was seen fit for the Prince Consort to overnight here, who came to re-open the prison for the incarceration of convicts. Further refurbishments in 1908 re-fronted the building and a large decorated room was added at the rear, pre-empting another royal visit, this time the Prince and Princess of Wales in June 1909. Coming almost full circle the building was leased by the Home Office in 1941 for 50 years as Prison Officer’s accommodation and a mess. Its final incarnation (to date) is as a visitor centre through a collaboration between The National Park Authority and the Duchy of Cornwall, providing information and resources to help educate and inform Dartmoor visitors from near and far.
4. Oakery
Not quite halfway to Two Bridges our route crosses Blackbrook, a tributary that feeds into the West Dart. Pre-turnpike days, the packhorses would have negotiated the little clapper bridge here at Oakery. No feet or hooves pass over it anymore. The clapper is bypassed by the modern road a mere 15m away and it is bounded by private land. It is inaccessible, redundant but protected.
Although labelled as Oakery on OS maps as well as the 1840s tithe map, colloquially the place is known as Ockery or Okery. A small barn was built here on one side of the brook (c.1808) to accompany a cottage on the other side (c. 1805) (Heritage Gateway, undatede). The cottage is gone; the barn remains. Probably built by Thomas Tyrwhitt, it had an ornamental Swiss Chalet style, with a sloping asymmetric roof, and was surrounded by a wooden spindled verandah. The dilapidated cottage was pulled down in 1925 possibly related to the tragedy and poverty that engulfed its final inhabitants.
The story is relayed by (Sandles, 2016) who tells of tenants James Kistle, his wife Clara, and their eight children. James was a quarryman at Foggintor who also reared bullocks in the 4 acre field that came with the property. In 1912 James died leaving Clara and the children. Clara quickly found herself in poverty. By 1914 she seems to have been pushed into desperate circumstances. A neighbour, Henry Caunter of Bachelor’s Hall, lost two pigs which he reported to the Tavistock police. They found one of the missing pigs in Clara’s barn, with reports that Clara had also been seen at Tavistock market attempting to sell pork. The next day she penned a plea for help to another neighbour of Sherberton Farm. It read:
“Dear Mr Coaker, Will you be as kind as to come out as I am in great trouble. I have not a friend in the world, and have five children under the age of 14 to keep. It is about Harry Caunter’s pigs. I will give anything if you come out; you told me you would any time I was in trouble. C. Kistle P.S. Come out this morning“.
From Sandles, 2016
The letter never reached Mr Coaker. Clara was found dead in bed by her 13 year old daughter Nellie on 14th May 1914. A search of the house revealed a packet of arsenic and the postmortem established that the poison was in her body. Clara was found to have ‘committed suicide while temporarily insane’. The Kistle children took places in the workhouse and orphanages. Nobody ever lived at Okery again.
5. Carter’s Road
Nearing Two Bridges the B3357 road from Tavistock meets the B3212 from Yelverton and continues as the B3212to Moretonhamstead, Dunsford and beyond. I am sorry if this sounds a bit boring but this is how we know these roads today – either through their designation in the road numbering scheme or by expressing where the road is going to or coming from. It is therefore not surprising that the appellation of the road between Tavistock and Reedy (just east of Dunsford), in times gone by, was known as ‘Carter’s Road’ (Heritage Garetway, undatedf). This was the result of the Duke of Bedford’s road improvements, through a turnpike act of 1772.
One might imagine that the name Carter relates to the fact that this upgraded road enabled carts to transport goods across the moor where previously such conveyancing had been nigh on impossible, but no. The name apparently relates to the contractor who undertook the work. However, it was these improvements to transportation that were on the minds of the towns of Okehampton and Launceston, who both violently opposed its construction, fearing a loss in trade. I wonder if their fears were founded? Did their economies feel the impact? And, I wonder, at what point in history did the name ‘Carter’s Road’ fall out of use and memory?
6. Potato Market
As unlikely as it feels today, but this isolated and picturesque spot of Two Bridges, was once the location of an 18th Century Potato Market.
As most British adults know, the potato is not a ‘British’ vegetable; and yet, it feels exceedingly British all the same. We love our spuds! Introduced in 1584, initially potatoes were considered as fit only as animal fodder and for the poor.
Throughout Europe, potatoes were regarded with suspicion, distaste and fear. Generally considered to be unfit for human consumption, they were used only as animal fodder and sustenance for the starving. In northern Europe, potatoes were primarily grown in botanical gardens as an exotic novelty. Even peasants refused to eat from a plant that produced ugly, misshapen tubers and that had come from a heathen civilization. Some felt that the potato plant’s resemblance to plants in the nightshade family hinted that it was the creation of witches or devils.
Chapman, undated
Whilst we often associate potatoes with famine because of the Irish Potato Famine, their role couldn’t be more opposite. Hunger and illness were widespread in Britain and Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries and diets consisted mainly of meat, cheese, butter and of course, bread. Very few vegetables were eaten and these were, according to Chapman (undated) ‘regarded as nutritionally worthless and potentially harmful‘. But attitudes, thankfully, shifted.
It is hard to imagine why it took so long for the potato to catch on. When it was embraced it yielded more food per acre than wheat and allowed farmers to cultivate a greater variety of crops; this gave a greater insurance against crop failure. The potato was easy to grow and so could be adopted even by the poorest farmers. And it was also easy to store and cook. This proved useful to increasingly urban populations that could neither produce food for themselves nor had much time to cook due to long industrial hours. The nutritional value of spuds helped combat diseases such as scurvy, tuberculosis, measles and dysentery. This in turn led to higher birth rates and lower mortality rates, enabling populations to expand. This population growth and the stability from the precariousness of starvation helped to fuel, through stomachs, the industrial revolution.
It is within this historical context that it can be appreciated why, on Donn’s map of 1765, that ‘Potatoe Market‘ is seen as significant enough to annotate on the map. By now the poor vilified potato was a necessity. Supposedly mainly grown on the eastern side of the moor, around Moretonhampstead, potatoes were brought to this location, transported by packhorses, for sale to buyers from Tavistock and Plymouth (Worth, 1994). Burnard (1905) citing William Marshall suggests that in the eighteenth century Moretonhampstead and Chagford ‘almost monopolized the local production of these tubers‘ but that this was gradually broken down. The monopoly may have had something to do with tenancy leases in the sourthern and western parts of the moor that that ‘forbade the growth of potatoes beyond what was absolutely necessary for the use of the tenant and his family’.
7. Two Bridges Quarry
For physical geography nerds like me, the little car park in the quarry at Two Bridges – which you need to get to early in the summer if you have a hope-in-hell of getting a parking space – has a mighty status. I will say no more, other than share its SSSI description which reads:
Two Bridges Quarry is one of the most important geomorphological sites in South West England, particularly noted for its association with D. L. Linton and his classic theory of tor formation. The site shows heavily decomposed granite; juxtaposed with a mass of relatively more sound bedrock and was used as a field model by Linton to illustrate the first stage of tor formation by differential weathering. Although Linton’s theory has been variously challenged or modified, the classic nature of Two Bridge Quarry and its historical significance in the development of ideas on tor genesis in Britain are attested by numerous references to the site in the geomorphological literature. Following Linton’s original work, the site has been investigated as part of several studies on the relative roles played by pneumatoloysis (alteration by mineralising fluids from deep within the Earth) and sub-surface weathering in the decomposition of granite in South West England.
Natural England, 1985
The Route
Through Princetown to Oakery/Ockery, the route follows the modern road but diverges here to pass over the clapper bridge.
Follow the main road to the junction with the Tavistock Road.
The original packhorse route crossed straight over, clipping the bottom of the land of Moor Lodge and headed in a NE direction to cross a long gone clapper across the Cowsic River.
At this point the packhorse route from Tavistock joins this one from Plymouth. The passage of the route through Two Bridges will be taken up in more detail in a future blog as I join it up with this other branch.
References
Anonymous (1853). Dartmoor Prison: As it was, and as it is. In Fraser’s magazine for town and country, Nov 1853, pp577-587.
Anonymous (1855). A Visit to Dartmoor Prison. In The Leisure Hour: a family journal of instruction and recreation, Mar 29 1855 pp 199-203
Archiuk. Old Maps. https://www.archiuk.com/archi/archi_maps.htm
Chapman, J. (undated). The Impact of the Potato. History Magazine
Dartmoor National Park Authority (2011). Princetown: Conservation Area Character Appraisal. DNPA.
Devon County Council Environment Viewer. https://maptest.devon.gov.uk/portaldvl/apps/webappviewer/
Hemery, E. (1986). Walking Dartmoor’s Ancient Tracks: A Guide to 28 Routes. Robert Hale: London.
Heritage Gateway (undated)a. The Plymouth and Dartmoor Tramway (Dartmoor section). heritagegateway.org
Heritage Gateway (undated)b. The Plume of Feathers, Princetown. heritagegateway.org
Heritage Gateway (undated)c. The former Railway Inn, Princetown. heritagegateway.org
Heritage Gateway (undated)d. The Duchy Hotel, Princetown. heritagegateway.org
Heritage Gateway (undated)e. Cottage known as The Ockery, Princetown. heritagegateway.org
Heritage Gateway (undatedf). Carter’s Road, Moretonhampstead. heritagegateway.org
Natural England. (1985). Two Bridges Quarry SSSI. SSSI Designation Listing. https://designatedsites.naturalengland.org.uk/
Sandles, T. (2016). The Ockery. Legendary Dartmoor. legendarydartmoor.co.uk
Thorne, R. (Ed.) (1986). TYRWHITT, Thomas (1762-1833), of Tor Royal, Princetown, Devon. in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820. Boydell and Brewer. Available at https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/
Worth, R. Hansford (1994). Worth’s Dartmoor. Peninsula Press: Newton Abbot
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