TAMAR VALLEY from STATION

Today after promptly leaving the station car park we walked uphill along the pavement towards the petrol station known locally as ‘Pearce’s’ . This meant passing the old granite drinking fountain in the middle of the road which was erected in 1913 to commemorate the coronation of King George V two years earlier on 22nd June 1911. The inscription continues…..‘And the alteration of the gradient of Sandhill during great distress in this parish of 1908-09’ If anyone knows what this ‘distress’ refers to, I would love to hear from them as I have been unable to find out myself.

Continuing along Cemetery Road we reached the Tamar Valley Centre and entered the grounds through a wooden gate where everyone traipsed up the grassy slope to the lane near the school. After crossing the main road and walking along Delaware Road, it wasn’t long before we joined a footpath beside Delaware Farm. This downhill path with its one stile halfway along is edged with a narrow leat of running water. Here the banks are clothed with a mass of bright yellow Celandines in the spring which is when I took this photo on the far left. Almost at the bottom can be seen the remnants of a bridge, once part of the old mineral railway.

When leaving this path we reached Higher Dimson and nearby the 16th century Body’ Court, believed to be one of the oldest properties in the area; it was granted Grade 2 listing in 1987. This beautiful old house has been divided up into smaller dwellings in more recent years.

On we walked downhill through Middle Dimson and Lower Dimson until we arrived at another footpath, very different from the last; both wider and much rockier and littered with fallen holly leaves. This is the former packhorse route from Tavistock into ; heavily laden panniers were slung across the horse’s backs to hang down both sides. This was long before the A 390 road from Devon into Cornwall was constructed. The horses would have come down what we call the ‘short-cut’, possibly a whole chain of them with a lead horse at the front and one man in charge. Once across the New Bridge those horses and mules headed uphill the way we had all just walked, continuing up through all the Dimsons’ and on to the larger towns.

Nowadays there is a flight of steps at the bottom which were quite steep and once everyone was safely down we stopped for a refreshment break before continuing on towards the Cornish end of New Bridge.

A couple of centuries later the man in charge of those pack-horses would have needed to pay a toll before crossing the bridge at the quirky-looking toll house which is thought to have been built for the Tavistock Turnpike Trust in 1772. It was the Abbot of Tavistock who, in 1520 decreed that the bridge be built to shorten the distance by road from Tavistock to and . The first turnpike road, whereby travellers paid tolls to be used for road upkeep, was authorised in 1663 and the term turnpike refers the military practice of placing a pikestaff across a road to block and control passage. Upon payment of the toll, the pike would be "turned" to one side to allow travellers through. (Note the five-storey Caledonia on the Cornish side of the bridge in the sketch above where many of the tin and copper miners once lodged)

Thankfully, we walkers had nothing heavier to carry today than a small backpack and a walking pole as we crossed the road to walk along the Discovery Trail on the Cornish riverbank. We found this stretch of the footpath very relaxing after having to tread so carefully, watching every step during the first half of the walk; now we could look around as we walked and admire the striking reflections in the water and the rock formations on the opposite banks. There was a lot of Himalayan Balsam at the water’s edge on both sides of the river which is a real problem in this part of Britain; it can eject its seeds up to four metres which are then carried along by the flow of water to invade another stretch of riverbank. This expanse of water from New Bridge was owned by the Abbots in medieval times so they also constructed a weir further downstream to attract spawning salmon, thus marking the tidal and navigable head of the Tamar. Ownership of the river passed to John, Lord Russell in 1539 and then to his descendants the Dukes of Bedford. Long before we reached Weir Head we could hear the rushing water but it was so overgrown we could see very little until we had walked further on and looked backwards. Soon we began to see Pink Purslane and Pendulous Sedge and even some early blackberries at the side of the path; some of us picked a few of the juicy fruits to eat as we walked along.

Continuing onwards we passed the remains of the Tamar Manure Navigation Canal and the lockkeeper’s cottage on the island between here and the river; then after about a mile after first joining the path, we arrived at Netstakes where we then left it to walk uphill along a wider track.

Upon reaching Calstock Road we followed this all the way back to Gunnislake village, passing Hatches Green and later the 17th century inn named The Rising Sun. When we spotted the tower of St Anne’s Church we knew we were almost at the end of our walk. After watching the clock throughout and arriving in good time, the bus was actually ten minutes late!