2015 Walking Trip in Devon, Great Malvern, and The Shropshire Hills: Dartmouth

He said:
Today was the best weather so far, the sun actually came out midday and it felt warm and pleasant. The museum, poking around the shops, a river cruise, a high tea, then I walked up the steep hill to get a better look at the Dart estuary and the Diamond Jubilee Trail. This helps me come up to speed for handling the downhill sections.
I will let the photos help illuminate Eileen’s narrative below.

She said:
We started our day today at the Dartmouth Museum. It is housed in The Butterwalk, a series of buildings dating from the 1600's, one of which was a Sea Merchant's home.
The first Museum room housed replicas of the sailing vessels that had sailed from Dartmouth throughout the centuries. Particularly interesting to me were models of Crusader ships that sailed from Dartmouth in 1190, Sir Francis Drake's Golden Hinde and a collection of 26 (very old) Ships In Bottles that were all built accurately to scale from the original ship's builder's plans. Crazy.
During the War with Spain (1584) Dartmouth was part of a chain of warning beacons that would warn towns and harbors along the coast when a Spanish ship was sighted. Giant bonfires along the cliffs/high hills of the coast.
Spain did take a toll on England, and Sir Francis Drake took revenge on the King of Spain. His Golden Hinde took bounty from the Spanish galleon, Nuestra Señora de la Concepcion. The bounty was so, well, bountiful that it was said to have taken his crew 6 days to transfer the bounty from the Spanish ship to his and was so great that the Queen's share alone was enough to pay off the National debt. Take that, Spain!
Lolly - there was a set of Dominoes carved in bone by a French prisoner of war (1812) - so teeny tiny, each one half the size of a chiclet!
The original wood paneling and carved moldings in the room were quite elaborate and the floors were those great sloping, creaking, wide planks. Oh, and the Museum rooms are also certified as Haunted by the Devon Phenomenon Society.
Room 2
I also learned that in the 1700's, a man would give his wife or sweetheart a bent or broken coin (that could no longer be used as legal tender) as a Love Token when he was about to embark on a long sea or land journey. This was somehow supposed to keep him in her mind? Who was fooling whom?
Another exhibit was a lovely shot silk Victorian dress, displayed next to an incredibly intricate and fancy Sewing Box. Again, was the theory that since women had to do all the sewing, fabricating and mending, if they were given a very fancy box to keep their tools in, they were mollified?
Luckily, we've come a long way, baby.
Dartmouth was also famous for pottery, and I'm sure Rick took some great photos of that display.
Dartmouth was used as a staging and practice ground for American troops before they sailed for D-Day. The Dartmouth Museum secured excellent original footage of the training from an American officer and put commentary to the film. The facts are fascinating. 8 Devon villages had to completely evacuate so that troops could practice with live ammunition. The villagers had only a few days to pack up and prepare to leave and they were not told the actual reason for their needed departure. They couldn't return for a year. In their absence, Allied ship convoys would come into Dartmouth harbor for safety at night and return to the coastal sea during daylight. The code name for the practice drills of Channel crossing and beach landings was "Exercise Tiger." There were 100's of Allied troop casualties just in the practicing.
A final room contained the accoutrements of a family who lived in Dartmouth: the scientific tools of the brother (early microscope, weights and measures, slides of bugs and plants as he was a huge fan of Darwin's) and the laces and Victorian Card collection and buttons, bows, gloves, hair pins and jewelry of the sisters. A look inside a privileged life of the era.

After the Museum, we took a harbor cruise. It was a spectacular blue sky, puffy white clouds kind of day. Seeing Dartmouth from the water was a real treat, especially in clear weather.
We sailed by the Royal Navy College, where all British Naval Officers go thru to their commissions. An impressive building, high up on a hill. The College has the longest corridor in Europe (odd claim to fame.) In the harbor at Sand Quay, are college training vessels and we watched some cadets going through their paces. Docked was the Hindustan, a Mine Sweeping vessel, now docked for training purposes.
"Dart" is Celtic for tree, and the River Dart is aptly named as it is lined with thick oak forests whose wood was used for charcoal.
The deepest part of the Dart is 60'.
We sailed by Greenway House, home of Agatha Christie.
We circled the Anchor Stone buoy in the center of the river as we headed back towards Dartmouth proper. The Anchor Stone was also called the Nagging Wives Rock as in the 1600/1700's nagging wives could be dragged out there at low tide and had until the onset of high tide to decide to change their ways. Our Captain (a woman) said that recently it had been changed to the Inattentive Husbands Rock but had to be disused as it had, since the change, become grossly overcrowded (ha!)
We sailed past Kingswear, a posh community across the harbor from Dartmouth where the very wealthy merchants built their big homes in the 1800's.
We passed the Kingswear Castle, a paddle wheel boat now used for harbor tours. During WWI, it was an Isolation Ship, where soldiers who were ill with unknown diseases were kept until they got better (or died.). After the war, it was decommissioned because no one wanted to use it, fearing that the disease germs were imbedded in the ship's wood. It was recently found and restored by the British Paddle Wheel Society.
We sailed past Dartmouth Castle and clearly saw the holes at the water line where we had learned yesterday about the chains that 1500/1600's fort soldiers could pull across the River Dart at that point to rip open the hills of enemy ships.

Next, I schmooped around town, in and out of the shops. R hid in the shady shadows. We reconnected and found a great Tea Room on a back street and settled in for a High Tea. So beautiful and so delicious and so huge! We ate everything in sight.

R took another hill climb to continue to acclimate his legs and I waddled home in the late afternoon pleasantness. What a wonderful day. Tomorrow, we take our first long walk - 8-10 miles along the South Coast Trail. Looking forward to it.

Richard the Lionheart Crusader Ship (model)