In which Sid and Doris ride up to Dartmoor’s prison for Napoleonic French and American prisoners of war, who also built their own church.
The first ten miles are mostly uphill says Doris but Tavistock is the first stop, down to the River Tavy.
Though Tavistock claims Sir Francis Drake as its most famous son it was the 7th Duke of Bedford who in the late 1900s rebuilt the town in granite glory on the back of his mining interests. The Horn of Plenty hotel where we stayed last night (big thumbs up), was once the home of the Duke’s mining captain, and he was doing OK too. Happily for the local architecture Tavistock has not been so lucky since, so the main square has been preserved as it was in 1900. Pausing briefly not to go into the museum of the Cornwall and Devon Constabulary S and D set out on “one of Britain’s top 100 cycle climbs”.
This is a long dramatic, persistent climb out onto Dartmoor, which today is more inviting than Conan Doyle portrayed it in The Hound of the Baskervilles. It is a sunny day on rolling hills with big views. At 1,492 feet it’s not the Grand St Bernard, but it does go on. Up, down a bit, more up, more up, some extra down but adding height. (Over 1,000 feet and so another 50p into the ice cream budget hooray.)
At Princetown S and D lure themselves into the jail museum. This has many interesting things, like the Cornwall at War museum. It also brings home why at Arundells (last home of PM Edward Heath, in Salisbury, where Sid is a steward) the curator and team worked so hard for Museum Accreditation. This is definitely a long way from accreditation status although still interesting.
Dartmoor was a category C jail, for serious offenders who would be away from home for some time, now closed due to high radon levels (not actually proven harmful). One exhibit hits home. It explains Story Book Dads, where necessarily absent fathers across the prison estate are recorded on DVD reading a story for their children. Other prisoners coach the reader and are trained to do all the video editing. Better than sewing mail bags. www.storybookdads.org.uk if you would like to support a good cause.
We cycle onwards more broadly informed but immediately stop again as we see St Michael’s and All Angels built 1810 to 1814 first with the help of French and then American prisoners of war (paid 6d a day). The instructions to the builders were uncompromising: “To be executed upon the plainest and most economical style possible”.
The stained glass was added later by patriotic American ladies to commemorate those who died in prison, mostly from disease. Sorry, Mr Madison.
We can’t stop for the ancient bridge at Postbridge as it is in a dip and we are going whizzy whizzy (or in Doris’s case whirr whirr) to try and whoosh up the other side, but fortunately Davepark has published this photo, which is taken from the road we are on.
However we do have to stop at the top, where a team of wild horses are proving the truth of the saying “wild horses wouldn’t make me…” by refusing to do anything. The photo shows them grouped to one side of the road but mostly they were spread out across the whole road, entirely indifferent to cars and even to Doris’s wildly dinging bicycle bell.
Downhill again and Sid muses darkly on what the sheep are lying about. “You’re neaaarly at the top”, “Not much faaaarther now” etc.
As S and D proceed across the still hilly moorland they are surprised when a Land Rover cuts across them and out jumps Kev, the cyclist we last saw at Horsebridge on the Tamar. His mate is showing him the moors and Kev recognises Doris’ bottom or she hopes perhaps her distinctive Bonkers top. Dave, his driver congratulates us. He guides cycle tourists along the south western reaches of the Lands End to John O’Groats route and says people are usually pretty wiped by now. Sid tries to look nonchalantly unwiped until they are gone in a rattle of LR diesel.
The day has a stink in the tail as Doris, following National Cycle Route 28 and the advice of Ride With GPS, turns down an apparently quiet and harmless backroad towards the lovely Mill End Hotel on the River Teign. It would be an appropriate championship downhill mountain bike course. Really more suited to 4WD in a 90 inch wheel base – come back Dave.
The wonderful Mill End Hotel was a mill. It is by a river bridge in a deep, steep valley. The road here was precipitously down hill. Sid, you’d better have a pudding.
(Fantastic photo courtesy of the Mill End Hotel’s web site)