Day 31: Rest day in Tavistock

No need to get up early today, so Rich goes down into town to buy bread and juice from the Co-op for breakfast and I get the much-needed washing on. We plan to go to the Museum and the Visitor Centre, but both of them are closed on Mondays. The visitor folder also suggests the Pannier Market, but that is closed on Sundays and Mondays. There’s only one thing for it as it’s a bright, sunny day: we decide to go for a walk!

Rich has spotted a viaduct up the hill from the town, so we head towards it, locating the Viaduct Walk that crosses it after some trial and error. The views across the pretty town to Dartmoor are stunning and we walk across to the other side, continuing along the old railway track path.

The map suggests that there is a bird sanctuary along the path, but when we arrive, there is a rather odd artificial waterfall decorated with garden gnomes. We turn around and head back down towards town.

There were originally two railway lines into Tavistock, a wealthy, stannary town collecting taxes from tin mining, as well as china clay production. The South Devon and Tavistock Railway and the London and South Western Railway had separate lines (with different gauges) that competed with each other for freight and passengers for over 50 years. British Rail despatched the last train through Tavistock on 5th May 1968. Nearby Gunnislake has the closest functioning station, connecting to Tavistock by bus (hopefully).

Tavistock is an old town. There were Stone and Iron Age settlements in the vicinity but its recorded history dates back to the foundation of Tavistock Abbey in 974 by Ordwulf, son of Ordgar, Ealderman of Devon. The abbey’s charter was granted in 981 by King Ethelred the Unready, Ordwulf’s nephew. Little remains of the abbey now apart from a semi submerged cloister in the grounds of St Eustachius’s church and a nearby still house, but the town continued to prosper.

We go to the Original Pasty House for a traditional Cornish pasty lunch, then head down to the river Tavy, walking along it until we reach the Tavistock Canal and the Wharf. The canal originally linked the Tavy to Morwellham Quay on the river Tamar, but has long since silted up. The Wharf has a community cinema and a tiny art gallery, but there is little to occupy us here.

Unlike much of the surrounding land, which is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, Tavistock largely belongs to its residents. The Abbey originally had extensive estates here. With the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539, however, these were given to John Russell, one of Henry VIII’s (and Henry VII’s) ‘fixers’. Russell ultimately became the Earl of Bedford and the Russell family, later becoming Dukes, owned most of the area for almost 400 years. They also owned property in London, hence Tavistock and Russell Squares there.

In 1911, as part of a complex scheme to protect the Bedford fortune from inheritance tax, Herbrand Russell, 11th Duke of Bedford, sold off most of his Tavistock estate. Although his plan never came to fruition, tenants nevertheless bought their properties from the Duke (he loaned two thirds of the money at 4% interest) and Tavistock became a flourishing town of owner occupiers. Interestingly, Herbrand, a keen biologist and President of the Zoological Society of London, introduced North American grey squirrels to Woburn and Regents Parks, as well as gifting them to several other estates, and was thus largely responsible for the obliteration of native red squirrels in most of southern England. He was, however, instrumental in saving the milu deer species from extinction, also by bringing it to Woburn Abbey.

We do our shopping in Boots and Superdrug and buy some gorgeous cakes at Coffee and Cream patisserie. We then head back up the hill to the Apple Pie apartment cottage for a mug of tea and a rest (only ~10,000 steps today).