The East Bank of the Tavy: Grenofen to Denham Bridge

Background

I think I have walked along this stretch of the Walkham and Tavy valley more than any other place. I grew up on the Buckland Monachorum side of the valley and was taken by my parents who were keen walkers. I remember running over the arsenic spoils and finding nuggets of fools gold in the mining detritus. As a teenager I walked there with friends to get away from the family. When I brought my husband-to-be to Devon it was one of the first places I took him, keen to show him the beauty of my home. Moving back to the area, our own kids followed. We would stand with them on Grenofen Bridge and look into the deep waters, trying to spot fish, holding their positions, aligned in the flowing water below. Ergo, Grenofen Bridge became known to us as Fish Bridge.

Perhaps I should have done more renaming? Once I had a daunting encounter with wild boar so maybe I should have called it Wild Boar Valley? Walking back towards the car park at Grenofen Bridge on the south bank of the river, my exit was blocked by two of these humongous hairy hogs. That was what struck me – just how big they were. I was alone with my young daughter who I swept into my arms as I diverted as far as possible from the footpath, and quickened my step. The boar were completely disinterested in me but my concern was that an erratic toddler might unnerve them. Classified as a ‘dangerous wild animal’ I think my elevated heart rate and precautionary tactics were sensible.

I thought I had explored this area pretty thoroughly, but of course, I haven’t. Like most of us we follow our usual tracks and visit our favourite spots. We tend to stick to our easy pathways rather than depart and reconnoitre. We are safe and on autopilot. For this blog post I walked with an old school friend for whom this place is also a favourite. What was interesting was that her routes through the valley were different to mine. By joining forces she was able to show me different places and pathways to the ones I normally took. It was a joy to discover stretches of the Tavy that I had not previously found, not because they are hard to get to but because they weren’t on my normal routes.

Not every walk provides a lesson. Why should it? But this walk did give me one. It reminded me of the need to get out of the ruts we form for ourselves when we walk our usual haunts, and the need to sometimes depart from our self-made beaten track.

On this walk I follow a roller coaster route from Grenofen Bridge, up through the Sticklepath Woods, descending back down to Double Waters, back up again to Berra Tor, then down to Denham Bridge, returning to Grenofen once more, ‘up and over’ via the minor farm roads.

7 Interesting Things

1. Double Waters

Double Waters – so good they named it twice! This river confluence is where the smaller Walkham dissolves its identity into the larger Tavy. In the not so distant past this location was busy with mining, both upstream and down. With a ford and a foot bridge it would have been a useful crossing point for workers. A foot bridge remains, nowadays trotted over by toddlers, dog walkers and ramblers.

The spot is picturesque and many linger along their route. Stones are skimmed, sticks are thrown, feet are paddled. The river here is fished by permitted anglers and is a favourite spot of wild swimmers. The wild swimmer is a hardy creature, most often seen early in the morning (sometimes naked!) at all times of the year, and in any temperature. But whatever your age and purpose here, most everyone looks up and cherishes the beauty of the coupling waters.

2. Virtuous Lady Mine

Mining of copper and tin is thought to have begun here in the Elizabethan, with the Virtuous Lady supposedly named after the virgin Queen. Intermittent exploitation took place for a few centuries before being reopened as a copper mine in the early 19th C mining boom. The mine was a combination of openworks and a number of shafts, some of which even track under the river at a depth of 20 fathoms. I can never remember what a fathom is. Apparently it is the arm span of a man from middle finger tip to middle finger tip – approximately 6ft. So the tunnels here went 120 feet (or 36.5m) below the Tavy. Its boom years were in the 1850s but it went downhill quickly, going into liquidation in 1873 .

According to Rendell (1996) ore was taken from here by packhorses which were led by young boys, across a bridge and up to Orestocks on the other side, and onwards to Morwellham for transportation to South Wales for smelting. The bridge no longer exists and nor is it shown definitively on the earliest OS 6 inch map (1880-1899), but judging from where the paths lead and the indication of its footings, it must be where I have shown on the map, only about 100m downstream of Double Waters.

Waterwheels initially powered this mine, with water taken off the Walkham in a leat just upstream of Grenofen Bridge. This leat contours the hillside for about two kilometres before reaching the Virtuous Lady. But its work did not end there. It continued to another mine – the Lady Bertha – and it is this mine that gives the leat its name. At the height of its profitability in the 1850s steam power was introduced at the Virtuous Lady to supplement the water power. This proved an expensive and badly timed innovation as it coincided with a fall in copper prices. Every attempt at squeezing out profit was used, with tin and arsenic being extracted from earlier working, but the writing was on the wall (Rendell, 1996).

The presence of arsenic in the ground can still be observed from the patchily vegetated poisonous spoil heaps on the river banks. However, in the decades that I have been coming here I can testify to the considerable colonisation of these heaps by hardy plants, which look less and less industrial as the years progress. Take a look at these aerial photographs contrasting how denuded of vegetation the valley still was in the 1940s , some 70 years after the mine closed. Compare this to the situation now. Also note the large quantities of sediment (showing as white) in the river, now flushed out to the lower Tavy and Tamar, and how the downland is becoming wooded by encroaching trees.

For me, the mine’s history after closing is the most interesting and unexpected. I will let Paul Rendall explain …

“up until the early 1970s it was possible to be taken around the underground caverns where, apart from the remains of the workings, substantial amounts of various crystallised minerals could be seen. Towards the end of the 19th century, in fact, the underground remains were an extremely popular attraction to visitors“

Tim Sandles, in his comprehensive blog ‘Legendary Dartmoor’ tells of his own subterranean explorations of the Virtuous Lady mine shafts and the minerals he saw under the ground. He tells of how these beautiful crystals have been harvested by collectors meaning there is little left to see underground. And so, the Virtuous Lady’s history is not just one of mining, but is also more latterly of mining tourism and mineral and crystal collecting.

3. The Abbot’s Fish Weir

The bible has a thing about fish – fishers of men, fish Friday, Lenten fish. This was religiously observed. Literally. So, it comes as no surprise that fish, fishing and fishing rights were important to monks, and as a consequence, the Tavy was important to them too. Along this stretch of the river was a weir known as the Abbot’s Weir whose purpose was to divert and trap fish. In fact, the name weir is thought to come from the old Saxon ‘wer‘ which means fish-trap.

I am not clear exactly where the Abbot’s Weir was located and nor are historians. Finberg (1969) – the historian of Tavistock Abbey – thinks it was just a few hundred yards below Double Waters and that its remains can be seen. Gill (1968) – the historian of Buckland Abbey – thinks that it might have been nearer to Hatch Mill. Normally made out of wood, today nothing would exist of a medieval fish weirs at this location, although plenty of later weirs are evident. A wooden weir would have rotted away, been destroyed by floods, or if any vestige had remained, been obliterated by the turbulence of mining. I am not sure what Finberg saw fifty-odd years ago but I think it highly unlikely that it was the Abbot’s Weir. However, Hatch Mill is a little too far downstream as the Abbot’s Weir was opposite the Blackmoorham Wood.

The precise location is immaterial. This whole stretch of the Tavy was important for fish as attested to by the place names.Take the names ‘Hatch Mill’ and ‘Great Hatch Wood’. The hatch part of the name will almost certainly relate to the construction of weirs and associated ponds to farm fish. There is a similar association on the Tamar. Finberg (1969) writes about the fish weirs of Tavistock Abbey situated at Gunnislake, just below the New Bridge crossing. And what place names do we find at that location? Hatches Wood and Hatches Green. The importance of fish in the medieval economy and diet immortalised in the labelling or our places.

4. Fighting Friars

In the year 1280, close to the Abbot’s Weir, there was a bit of a ‘to-do’ involving some monks having fisticuffs with a rough-tough Forester. The year is significant. 1280 is the first year that the Cistercians took up residence at the newly established Buckland Abbey, and there seems to have been some ‘new neighbour’ issues at play.

The fishing rights along this stretch had been made over to the new abbey having once been held by Tavistock. Robert, the first Abbot at Buckland, is recorded as being at ‘Ivyoak’ in the Blakemoresham Wood with his servants taking wood to mend the weir. Significantly, Blackmoorham Wood is on the west bank of the river (i.e. not the Buckland side!). Here they got into a fracas with a man called Thomas Gyrebrand, Forester to the Abbot of Tavistock. Gill (1968) recounts a hearing in which Gyrebrand:

“accused Abbot Robert of taking timber from the wood and assaulting him when he tried to prevent this. He told a good tale, that the Abbot’s men attacked him with axes and darts, beat him, wounded him in the arm with an arrow, and stole his coat”

The Buckland men were legally entitled to take wood from either bank to mend the weir and they gave a different version of events:

“Gyrebrand attacked the Buckland monks as they were peacefully and lawfully cutting timber to repair their weir. Gyrebrand’s assault drew blood, whereupon one of the Buckland men drew his bow in self-defence. The winged Gyrebrand promptly fled, leaving behind his coat, which William le Pye carried away rather than leaving it lying in the wood.“

Things didn’t go Gyrebrand’s way and he was accused of perjury and sent to prison. I take pleasure from the ‘two sides to the story’ narrative of this ancient historical record, as well as knowing the names of three 13th C characters that had a barney in these woods.

5. Berra Tor Camp

On the southern edge of Buckland Down is a peninsula of common land, abutted by the circular remnant of Berra Tor Iron Age settlement. It stands out easily on a map; not so easily on the ground. Its ditched ramparts have been turned into hedges and enclosed the space within as a field. It is easy for the rambler to walk by, thinking that they are passing any old stretch of hedge. But the observant will notice that it is atypical, with an outer ditch and the hedge being composed of a fairly substantial bank. The ‘Berra’ place-name is also indicative, being that it means a hill, mound or fortification. It has given its name to the nearby tor and farm. I wrote in a previous blog post about The Trendle on the outskirts of Tavistock – another hidden Iron Age settlement. In both cases I enjoy the way these ancient parts of our landscape lurk in plain site amongst us, even named on maps, and yet inconspicuous and unseen as we walk straight by them.

6. The Mysterious Chapel

I cannot put a name to this chapel at Berrator because it does not have one. I cannot tell you anything about its history because nothing is known. I cannot show you pictures of tumble down ruins, because nothing exists. There isn’t even a mention of it on the standard OS Explorer map. But detailed maps and the earliest OS maps have it marked. It lies in a tiny bramble engulfed enclosure, too small to be a ‘proper’ field (see map below).

James (1997), in her thesis on the Medieval Chapels of Devon, records it as ‘ancient’ with a question mark and is able to tell us no more. Buckland Abbey records (founded in 1278 AD) would surely have thrown up some cursory mention of it in their records as perhaps would the Diocesan ones from Exeter if it were founded or in use from late 13th C onwards? James provides a concise history of chapels that gives some context. Whilst not given the name ‘chapel’ until Norman times, small places of worship – oratories and hermitages – were known in Cornwall and Devon, linked to the early Celtic saints and missionaries that spread through the Celtic fringe in the 5th to 8th centuries. Initially pagans, the Saxons gradually adopted christianity with small places of worship gradually proliferating, linked to newly emerging monasteries and a general embedding of Christian culture. Over time these lesser places of worship were subsumed into an entrenching religious hierarchy, as evidenced in the Ecclesiastic Code of King Aethelred of 1014 in which they were known as ‘field churches’. Whatever the date of the Berrator Chapel, whether late medieval or earlier, I think this is a befitting description for this chapel, which is, after all, now just a field.

Although we are none the wiser in terms of a concrete history, Berrator chapel is old. If I owned this land then I would start a project. I would play at being an archaeologist. I would cut down the brambles. I would mark out a trench. I would remove the sod. I would have a trowel, a quadrat, a sieve and a finds tray. I may find nothing but I would be muddy and happy. Just one little scrap of the past in the soil might illuminate so much.

7. Denham Bridge

Denham bridge, with its pointed arch over deep slow flowing water is the lowest bridge crossing point on the Tavy. A mostly 17th century structure but with considerable 19th century repairs, it is also known that a Medieval bridge spanned the Tavy here. How early they managed to span the river we don’t know. It has in common with the locations of other early bridges a physical geography of a constricted narrow channel enclosed by secure rocky footings – ideal bridge spanning territory.

Denham Bridge has two arches, one much bigger than the other. Under normal flows the river only passes through the larger. The smaller one is recorded by the Heritage Gateway as a flood arch. Given the linkages between the Medieval silver mines of the Bere peninsula in the 13th C to centres of administrative power, woodland resource and smelting facilities on the Buckland side of the Tavy, you can see why a bridge here would have been particularly useful (Rippon, Claughton and Smart, 2009)

Route

• From Grenofen Bridge car park, ascend the hill through Sticklepath wood until you emerge from the woodland onto Buckland Down.
• Take a path to the right across the down following the valley on a roughly consant contour and then descend back down, passing Bucktor and on to Double Waters (1).

• Walk along by the river, exploring the remnants of the arsenic spoils, ruined buildings and mine shafts of the Virtuous Lady (2).
• Find the track that ascends above Tavy House as you can’t get round by the river here.
• Drop back down the other side of Tavy House to explore a lovely open stretch of the Tavy. There is plenty more mining archaeology here (Roughly where 3 and 4 might have been)

• Return up the path above Tavy House and continue up hill. Take one of the tracks to the right to head south across the souherrn end of Buckland Down.
• Make sure you veer to the left to walk next to the hedge boundary so that you see Berra Tor Iron Age settlement, often referred to as Berra Tor Camp on the map (5)

• Head SW from the Camp picking up one of the track that leads off the Down through a gateway and into a holloway just west of Berrator Farm.This holloway turns into a small road at a T junction. Turn right, downhill.
• After about 150 metres you get to another T – junction. Again, go right, downhill. When you are facing downhill the small overgrown field on your left is where the chapel was once situated (6)
• Carry on down the road to Hatch Mill and follow the footpath signs along the river past Ludbrook to Denham Bridge (7)

• Return the way you came for a while but continue uphill on the road until the hairpin bend, then take the footpath along a path that overlooks a steep hillside. This will then gradually ascend through fields until you reach the road.

• Take the road straight over passing Fairtown, go left to Coppicetown, then right. Stay on this road passing Alston and then take the left turn at the crossroads to head north and back over the Buckland Down, dropping back to Grenofen Bridge.

References

Devon Environment Viewer. http://map.devon.gov.uk/dccviewer/

Finberg, H.P.R. (1969). Tavistock Abbey: A Study in the Social and Economic History of Devon. Augustus M. Kelly: New York

Gill, C. (1968) Buckland Abbey. Underhill: Plymouth

Heritage Gateway. Denham Bridge, Buckland Monachorum. https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MDV5486&resourceID=104

Historic England. Camp NE of Berra Tor. https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1002622

Historic England 2018 River Fisheries and Coastal Fish Weirs: Introductions to Heritage
Assets. Swindon. Historic England.
HistoricEngland.org.uk/listing/selection-criteria/scheduling-selection/ihas-archaeology/

James, J. (1997). The Chapels of Devon. Masters Dissertation, University of Exeter.

Rendall, P. (1996). Exploring the Lower Walkham Valley. Forest Publishing: Newton Abbot

Rippon, S., Claughton, P. and Smart, C. (2009). Mining in a Medieval Landscape: The royal silver mines of the Tamar Valley. University of Exeter Press: Exeter.