Background
Part of Hemery’s ‘Walking Dartmoor’s Ancient Tracks: A guide to 28 routes’, Track 9 – Chagford to Plymouth Route
This section was from Two Bridges to Postbridge, a distance of 3.8 miles.
Part 4 – Trans-Dartmoor Packhorse Track: Part 4 – Princetown to Two Bridges
Part 6 – Trans-Dartmoor Packhorse Track: Part 6 – Postbridge to Water Hill
Background
I am now ten miles into this trans-Dartmoor packhorse route, one of the many ancient routes over the moor written about by Hemery (1986). The original trackway extended all the way to the coast, and the cluster of ports at Plymouth, Stonehouse and Devonport. For my walk though, I started out at Roborough, and in stages, I have been following its passage across Dartmoor towards Chagford. For this leg I am right in the heart of the moor; at Two Bridges, where the modern Plymouth, Moretonhampstead, Tavistock and Ashburton roads intersect
Previously I have been trying to engage with what it would have been like for a worker, carrying goods with a packhorse, over this remote and rough track – a route that had few buildings, let alone hamlets or villages, along its course before the late 18th Century. Now that I have got to Two Bridges, where this road merges with the Tavistock branch (or splits from it – depending on whether you are travelling east or west), I want to use this blog to put more of a focus on the impact of turnpike improvement on travel over the moor.
In 1772 the road between Tavistock and Moretonhampstead was turnpiked (HER, n.d.-a). This would have involved improvements to the road surface, bridge building, some re-routing, and the building of toll houses. This particular turnpike was supposedly known as Carter’s Road, after the contractor who built it, although I can find no primary sources for this appellation, only anecdote. In the absence of definitive evidence, it might also entertained that it was so named because, for the first time, it enabled carts to traverse the moor. For most of its route this new turnpike followed the line of the older track. However, in a few places it took a different route. This was the case for the section through Two Bridges to Crockern Tor where, according to Hemery’s description, the more ancient packhorse route, ran a little further to the north.
The Carter’s Road is itself, some forty years older than the turnpike that bifurcates to Roborough; the branch which I was following in my earlier blogs (linked here). According to Ebdon (2014, p66) this Roborough-Two Bridges road was created in 1812, just after the building of Princetown prison. With no renewal of the act after 1812, and with the Roborough and Dartmoor Turnpike Trust not reporting to the Royal Commission in 1840, it is thought it had ceased to function, presumably as a consequence of the closure of the prison, which was not in use between 1816 and 1850; the implication of this being that the road and its infrastructure must have fallen into disrepair.
However, packhorses passing across the moor from Moretonhampstead to Tavistock would, from 1772, be on improved road. How would this benefit the carriers?
On the up side, road improvement was intended to increase access for carts and carriages, so traffic increased. This enabled inns to flourish. In such desolate countryside, the proliferation of hostelries was probably welcomed. Previously along this inhospitable stretch, packhorse men would have used the hospitality of farms (perhaps the medieval Cherry Brook Farm offered farmhouse ale?), who were able to brew ale for sale to travellers, but these would have been less abundant and more rudimentary than the inns of the turnpike days.
As a toll road, turnpiking obviously had a financial impact, with carriers having to pay to travel. I imagine this was considered egregious to horse traffic, not dependent on an improved road surface for their business – metalled roads may be advantageous for cart and coach traffic, but they were not necessary for packhorses. How many of the packhorse carriers would have used the opportunity to upgrade from pack animal to a cart and horse? How many would have been able to afford to upgrade to a cart? Perhaps those running packhorse gangs may have been able to afford to innovate, whilst more humble carriers, with a single mule, may have had no choice to stick with their panniers, yet were still stung with toll charges?
I wonder what the reaction of packhorse carriers was to the new road, new traffic and new inns. Just like we can often have an emotional reaction to development, I am sure there were mixed opinions. Some carriers would no doubt have welcomed the changes to moorland business opportunities and the growth of settlement on the moor. Others, surely, would have begrudged the intrusion of roads, people, buildings and charges.
These themes of the turnpike’s impact on infrastructure and development across the moor will shape the ‘7 Interesting Things’ I explore along this stretch, a part of the moor that, to me, feels particularly impacted by its turnpike history.
7 Interesting Things
1. Which Two Bridges?
Because there are two bridges at Two Bridges it is easy to assume that this place takes its name from the two bridges that can be seen today. But this, confusingly, is wrong. Two Bridges does indeed take its name from two bridges, but the bridges in question were about fifty metres north of the current road bridge, and crossed the Cowsic River and the West Dart River before their confluence. The name is first recorded in 1573 at Tobrygge and later, in 1659, as Two Bridges (Gover et al, 1931, p197).
The route of the pre-turnpike highway was a little north of the modern road, presumably sited so as to benefit from the easier engineering task of bridging two smaller rivers with primitive clappers, rather than one big one.
The maps of the early cartographer Ogilby, printed in 1675, indicates a ‘stone bridg’ and the two rivers, as does Donne’s map of 1765. Hemery fleshes the bone. One of his great legacies was the attention he paid to gathering oral histories, and so, in this regard he is able to tell us that:
“The late moorman Jim Mortimore of Crockern Farm was told by his grandfather that the Clapper bridge [over the West Dart] was utterly destroyed by a great spate of the river during his father’s time (in the very early years of the last century) ‘after the Turnpike Rd was opened’. Such a spate would similarly have affected Cowsic – the two rivers rising in the same area of the northern fen – and destroyed the bridge that spanned it”
Hemery, 1986, p98
Rowe, writing in 1848 (p65) notes the existence of a clapper bridge at Two Bridges, indicating that at least one of these old crossings was still extant around the time of writing, and in 1889 Burnard was able to photograph the spot where the last vestiges of one of the bridges were still, in living memory, thought to have been located.
Hemery (1986, p98; and 1983, p433) further discusses the old routing. He talks of two routes: the one that immediately preceded the turnpike road, and, as we have seen, which crossed the rivers just above their confluence and; an even more ancient ‘way’, crossing east-west still further north, passing by Beardown Farm (although he admits this route is conjectural).
Hemery, did not have the benefit of LiDAR. Just above the confluence of the Cowsic and West Dart rivers there is a clear holloway over the rivers that seems to confirm the position of the pre-turnpike way.
2. The Two Bridges Hotel
The Two Bridges Hotel is first recorded in 1767 (Quick, 1992), built here because of trade from the Potato Market that operated from this location at this time (see previous blog about this route). The opening up of the turnpike road in 1772 would surely have bolstered this business. As footfall increased, there would have been a need for the public house to upgrade, to meet the needs of traveller, horse and cart. Sandles (2016) reports that this happened in 1792 when Sir Francis Buller built the Saracen’s Head, presumably a redevelopment and expansion of the earliest humble building.
Maudlin, writing about Georgian Inns says that “Inns enabled mobility but not all inns and not all travellers were the same. Late Georgian Britain was a strictly hierarchical, socially ordered society. Some inns were humble premises, little more than alehouses with rooms provided for poor, low-status travellers, such as wagoners and drovers, and were to be avoided” (Maudlin, 2020). Situated as it was, on a peripheral turnpike, and described by Quick (1992) as originally an alehouse, the Saracen’s Head would have started out low in the hierarchy of hostelries, being just a common public house (Maudlin, 2020, p20).
The investment by Sir Francis Buller in 1792 soon heralded a change of name that seems to have also signified a move away from a common alehouse persona, to a more up-market hotel. In 1803 the Saracen’s Head became the Saracen’s Head Hotel (Two Bridges Hotel, n.d.). Unfortunately this original building burnt to the ground in 1866, obscuring physical attempts to unpick its early history. It was re-built, and later acquired the name of the Two Bridges Hotel in the early 1900s.
3. Crockern Tor
Crockern Tor, (or Crockerntor as some spell it) was a place of enormous significance in Dartmoor’s ancient history as the site of the Stannary Parliament – a place of legislative assembly for the enactment of statutes governing the tin industry, attended by 96 elected jurats (Greeves and Newman, 2011, p2). It is thought that the Stannary Court met here as long ago as 1300 and possibly before (ibid, p1). It was used for centuries, up until 1710. With the Devon tin industry in terminal decline, this was the last time it met here, but proceedings had to be adjourned and moved to an indoor venue in Tavistock because of bad weather. There are no records of any further attempts to hold the parliament at Crockerntor (Greeves and Newman, 2011, p20).
A few accounts help to recreate what the Crockerntor parliament was like. Today the tor looks much like any other, but back in history accounts suggest it was furnished with stone slabs used as a table, and others as benches, including a ‘judges seat’ (HER, n.d.-b). These were apparently tumbled down by the 1750s, and after this time removed, perhaps to end up in farm buildings, walls and bridges. The only feature thought to still exist is the judges chair, but not in its original location. It is reputed to have been relocated to Dunnabridge Pound. However, Greeves and Newman (2011, p30) urge caution. They highlight the work of Marchand who examined the many conflicting reports offered about the Crockerntor furniture, as well as the lack of any physical evidence as to where any of these structures were sited.
Even if there was no permanent cultural fabric at Crockerntor, there was a social one. From modern eyes, it seems baffling to imagine 96 ‘high-born’ jurats meeting on a windswept tor, to conduct legislative business, but there were many more than this gathered here. According to an anonymous newspaper article from 1710, in addition to the jurats, plus clerks and other officials, it is also known that large crowds – perhaps of several hundred- also gathered for the proceedings and that an …
“Abundance of booths, good Victuals and Drink are brought out to be Sold, and nothing is wanting to make a fine show; for this happening once in Seven, sometimes not Twenty Years, every Body covets to see it. The Day we were to meet was so Rainy and Windy , that ’twas conjectur’d the poor Suttlers [small vendors or petty tradesman, who would normally follow and provision soldiers] lost, by Victuals and Drink prepared for the Day, a couple of Hundred Pounds“
(Anonymous in the Daily Courant, 1710, quoted in Greeves and Newman, 2011, p22)
As well as drawing large crowds, the Stannary Court was not a one-day wonder, but probably lasted several days. Hemery (1983, p430) cites evidence of a tinner’s court in Lostwithiel that lasted for eight days. This obviously begs the question, where did all these high ranking men stay? Hemery suggests that Crockerntor was within a short ride of the ancient tenements in the middle of the moor – nine being within thirty minutes ride and a further eight within forty-five minutes – so there would have been ample options for hospitality.
I think it is also worth considering the use of tents, for conducting business, accommodation or both. Tents were widely used in the past. One only has to think of Henry VIII and his ‘glamping’ to appreciate this as a possibility. The northern edge of Crockern Tor offers a wide and fairly flat ridge; plenty of space for the numerous hundreds of people that gathered for the itinerant court to set up on for the several days of the proceedings. To my mind, this is the much more workable than the rocky and steep southern side which seems entirely impractical for assembly, let alone conducting legal business.
With such a remarkable history, it needs to be asked, why this place? Crockerntor is located at an impartial central point and gives no particular privilege to any of the four Devon stannaries whose territories meet here. It lies in the middle of the moor but on the path of this ancient trans-moor way. It is also an unassuming low-altitude tor, prominent but easily ascended. In short, although remote, it possesses accessible qualities. Is this sufficient to explain the location? Accounts talk of tinners being ‘obliged’ to meet here and of it being used by ‘custom immemorial’. Hemery speculates that its history may even go back as far as the Anglo-Saxons as a witan meeting place (Hemery, 1983, p427)[1]. Perhaps. As Greeves and Newman (2011, p24-25) say, Crockerntor may have for “other reasons that we are not aware of provided the symbolism needed for this tradition to continue“.
4. Higher Cherry Brook Bridge
The Cherry Brook is one of the smaller rivers this trans-moor route crosses. A turnpike crossing, Higher Cherry Brook bridge replaced an earlier clapper (not to be confused with the clapper a couple of hundred metres up stream at Powdermills, which is a 19th century construction – HER, n.d.-c). Hemery (1983, p437) describes this site as once having a toll-gate and toll-house, presumably built around 1772 when the road was first turnpiked, probably because this is the point at which the Tavistock Turnpike Trust and the Moretonhampstead Turnpike Trust roads met (Ebdon, 2014).
Not much seems to be known about the toll house here. All I could find was Hemery’s reference to a toll-keeper being here in 1820 by the name Hannaford, he being mentioned in the Widecombe parish register. I find it hard to imagine it here and I find myself wondering how a toll keeper in this location was viewed? Was he regarded in the way we do traffic wardens – with mild hostility. Did people stop and natter? I also wonder how safe any toll-keeper was out here, having to store money in such a remote place, without anyone to hear calls of robbery? Surely he must have been a target for theft?
“isolated sites were vulnerable to thieves and highwaymen and so the windows of the tollhouse would routinely be fitted with stout bars, behind the grand facade and have built-in safes to safeguard the cash kept in the office.”
Rosevear, n.d.
All traces of this toll house have gone, perhaps buried under the quarry car park.What is also gone is the view to Bellever Tor …
5. Bellever Forest
For centuries, carriers with their packhorses, would have trudged this route, experiencing it as open moorland. But in the 1930s the Forestry Commission bought the land here at Bellever from the Duchy of Cornwall to use as a plantation. Now, travellers along the 2 km from the Cherry Brook to Postbridge, are bordered by a dark coniferous curtain that flanks the road, changing the vista and atmosphere here from capacious moor to crowded woodland.
Today if you stand at Higher Cherry Brook Bridge, Bellever Tor is obscured by this forestry.
But back in 1946, before the area had been fully planted, Bellever Tor can be seen recorded in a photograph in a book called The Dartmoor Scene (Day, 1946) taken from the Higher Cherry Brook Bridge.
Hemery writes of the original opposition to the coniferous plantations, and quotes John Somers-Cocks who said:
“the changed appearance of substantial tracts of the Moor and the over-planting of antiquities, for it unfortunately happened that at both Bellever and Fernworthy there were a number of substantial remains … Though these could be preserved, there could be no argument that they had lost much of their impressiveness when deprived of their age-old natural setting. All of these points were put forward strongly in order to minimize new developments, but with little effect; the public advantage was held to ie more in planting.“
John Somers-Cocks, quoted in Hemery, 1983, p483
Similar issues are beginning to bubble today for Dartmoor, not in relation to plantation for commercial forestry but in relation to mooted ideas to increase carbon sequestration to combat climate change. Debates centre around planting ‘the right trees in the right place’ (Dartmoor National Park Partnership Plan 2021-2026).
6. Gawler Bottom
Gawler Bottom is a thin valley mire that runs parallel to the road between Powdermills and Postbridge. A well defined path cuts across it, at right angles to the road, and heads to the Arch Tor side of the valley. This is a path that anyone who has walked the Lich Way will know. But, stray from the track, and the ground quickly gets stuggy (a dialect word for boggy).
The peat of this mire was considered particularly good – firm blackwood peat as Hemery describes it (1983, p482) – and was cut for use at nearby Postbridge and Powdermills. Whilst peat-cutting in 1892, a bronze ferrule [a joint or fastener] of a spear was unearthed here, as were the roots of trees, proving the presence of prehistoric woodland.
7. The Greyhound Inn – Postbridge
Greyhound Farm, as it is now called, is the oldest building still in use at Postbridge. It is first recorded here from the late 18th century, and was formerly the Greyhound Inn (HER, n.d.-d). The c. 1840 tithe map shows this inn, with a drive that arcs from the turnpike, presumably designed to assist traffic to divert off and stop for refreshments and stabling.
The Dartmoor Trust report that by the mid 1800s the building was no longer in use as an inn but was a farmhouse and that in 1895 part of the building was used as a sub-post office.
It is possible that the name ‘The Greyhound’ reflects the popularity of the dog at this time. Until George III took to the throne in 1760, coursing was “primarily a private sport which was conducted on the great estates of the royalty and aristocracy” (Kane, 2013). In the last quarter of the 18th century there had been an explosion of public coursing clubs and, likewise, greater popularity for the greyhound dog. Kane goes on to explain that “Public coursing meetings always took place on a large area of relatively open, unfenced ground, as the judges and the spectators wanted to see the dogs as they worked.”
Crossing, writing in 1903 notes that “formerly it was the stag that was hunted on Dartmoor, but he was exterminated considerably more than a century ago” (p90). Was the Georgian growth in hunting responsible for the final demise of stag on the moor, and does the name of the Greyhound Inn pay witness to this growth in hunting fashion? Possibly, but perhaps not in the way most immediately obvious …
Another explanation for the Inn’s name comes, not from the popularity of greyhound dogs for hunting foxes, but from the foxes themselves. Writing in 1848 Rowe gives us an explanation of Dartmoor foxes from his time. Accordingly:
The necessity for travelling long distances and the rough climate, has led, by the survival of the fittest, in the matter of foxes, to the formation of almost a special breed in the Dartmoor Highlands, having distinct peculiarities. This special fox, known among hunting men as the “Dartmoor Greyhound”, from his superior length of limb, his massive head and grey neck, is still to be found … He is found however, with blood unblemished, on the moor, from Tavy Cleave in the West, all around the Northern side to Widdecombe on the East”
Rowe, 1848, p331
Whatever the explanation, newly fashionable Greyhoud dogs, or the colloquial name for a Dartmoor fox, this inn at Postbridge, lies at the confluence of four hunting areas (Quick, 1992, p39), and would most certainly have seen a great deal of business in relation to this sport.
In walking this stretch of the trans-moor track I am struck, more than on any other part of this walk so far, as to the transformation that turnpiking brought to the most remote, middle reaches of the moor. Just in this short section the new bridges at Two Bridges, Higher Cherry Brook and Postbridge (all c.1772), upgraded their narrow and side-less clapper predecessors. The better bridges, improved road surface and more ergonomic routing, unlocked the potential of the moor to wheeled traffic and increased trade. In tandem, the road improvements enabled inns to flourish where they could not have been supported before. With such connectivity and services, the identity of Dartmoor as a wilderness was being chipped away at, evidenced by the proliferation of the middle-classes who, in the 19th century, began ‘excursioning’ over the moor in increasing numbers, and writing about its antiquities, wildlife and folklore.
In my next blog I will linger longer on Postbridge and put more focus this trans-moor route’s pre-turnpike history before push on the Warren House Inn and with Chagford finally in my sight.
The Route
- At Two Bridges, the original route across the old clappers is no longer possible. The clappers are long gone and there is no right of way by the river. Instead, take the Crockern Farm track and then leave the track and ascend the hill in a north easterly direction.
- Hemery shows the old route as cutting back east and joining with the modern road close to Parson’s Cottage. This is no longer possible because there is no access over the wall that runs along the road. Instead, I headed further NE and then cut across to Crockern Tor, rejoining the road east of Parson’s Cottage.
- Follow the road through to Postbridge.
- If you find it a bit dull, walking along the road, then diversions are possible. Why not cut in via Powdermills or Bellever Forest.
References
Crossing, W. (1903) Crossing’s Dartmoor Worker. Facsimile edition published in 1992, Peninsula Press: Newton Abbot.
Dartmoor National Park Partnership Plan 2021-2026. More Trees. https://www.yourdartmoor.org/
Dartmoor Pony Heritage Trust, n.d., Teachers’ Information Pack: Bellever Forest & Lakehead Grazing. https://dpht.co.uk/
Day, K.F., 1946. The Dartmoor Scene. Frederick Muller Ltd: London
Ebdon, M., 2014. The Turnpike Roads of Devon in 1840: Detailed Lists of the Roads with Maps. Published by Martin Ebdon.
Gover, J.E.B., Mawr, and Stenton, F.M., 1931. The Place-names of Devon, Part 1. English Place-Name Society. Volume Viii, Cambridge University Press: London.
Gray, T., 2000. Travels in Georgian Devon: The Illustrated Journals of the Reverand John Swete (1789-1800). Volume IV. Devon Books: Singapore.
Greeves, T and Newman, P., 2011. The great Courts of Devon Tinners 1510 and 1710. Dartmoor Tinworking Research Group.
Hemery, E., 1983. High Dartmoor. Robert Hale: London.
Hemery, E., 1986. Walking Dartmoor’s Ancient Tracks: A Guide to 28 Routes. Robert Hale: London.
Historic Environment Record (HER), n.d.-a. Carter’s Road, Moretonhampstead, HER Number MDV122032. https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/
Historic Environment Record (HER), n.d.-b. Site of the stannary parliament at Crockern Tor. HER Number MDV5947. https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/
Historic Environment Record (HER), n.d.-c. Clapper Bridge on the Cherry Brook at Powder Mills. MDV5845. https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/
Historic Environment Record (HER), n.d.-d. Greyhound Inn, Postbridge. MDV105842 https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/
Kane, K., 2013. The Gentlemanly Sport Of Coursing. Regency Fiction Writers – The Beau Monde. https://thebeaumonde.com
Liddiard, R. (2003) The Deer Parks of Domesday Book. Landscapes (Bollington, England). [online]. 4 (1), Routledge, pp.4–23.
Maudlin, D., 2020. Inns and elite mobility in late Georgian Britain. Past & Present, 247(1), pp.37-76.
Ogilby, J. (1675). Britannia. The Road from Exeter to Truro, In CORNWAL. Available from University of Michigan, Early English Books Online, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebogroup/h
Quick, T., 1992. Dartmoor Inns. Devon Books: Tiverton.
Roach, L. (2013) Kingship and Consent in Anglo-Saxon England, 871–978: Assemblies and the State in the Early Middle Ages [online]. 92, New York, Cambridge University Press.
Rosevear, A. n.d. Tollhouses in England. http://www.turnpikes.org.uk/
Rowe, S., 1848. A Perambulation of the Antient and Royal Forest of Dartmoor and the Venville Precincts or a Topographical Survey of their Antiquities and Scenery. Third Edition. James G. Commin: Exeter.
Sandles, T., 2016. Two Bridges. www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk
Two Bridges Hotel, n.d. Two Bridges Hotel, https://www.twobridges.co.uk/about-us
[1] His suggestion is not preposterous. Peripatetic Saxon’s are known to have favoured witan sites at the centre of royal estates and it is also recorded that some took place at hunting lodges (Roach 2013, p69). Liddiard (2003, p5) has noted that ‘forest law (often seen as an unquestionable ‘Norman Import’) existed in Anglo-Saxon England‘. Might it be that the Norman ‘Forest of Dartmoor’, a place of hunting, was a royal estate in Saxon England and that, as a central place, Crockerntor was a site of occasional assembly? Close by is Wistman’s Wood, not recorded until as late as 1630 by Risdon, but which could plausibly have derived from witan, i.e. Witan man’s wood.
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