A HISTORY OF THE DEWERSTONE COTTAGE

COMPILED BY GRAHAM EAGLE, DISTRICT COMMISSIONER FOR PLYMOUTH SCOUTS, FROM MANY DIFFERENT SOURCES

DEWERSTONE COTTAGE

Granite was not quarried on Dartmoor until the early 1800s. Before this surface granite – known as “Moorstone”, was ample for all needs. Quarrying on the Dewerstone has been in existence long before the railway, with the granite being removed by horse drawn vehicles. In 1850 a quarrying firm (Johnson & Johnson), their hope of commercial expansion being raised by the building of the SDTR, commenced operation. Johnson & Johnson, who later became the Haytor Granite Company, who also ran the Foggintor quarries, set about building a railway system to transport the granite across the Meavy to a siding alongside the main line.

Dewerstone Cottage was the counting house, stables and smithy for the granite railway system. Two quarries, two hundred foot above the cottage were connected by a narrow gauge track. Along the side of the highest part of the tramway are some rejected pieces of nearly finished dressed stone. Descent to the lower track was achieved by use of an inclined plane railway. The inclined plane is 400yds (365m) long with a fall of 200ft (61m), a gradient of 1:6. A counterbalance system was used whereby full trucks descending pulled up empty trucks for filling. A winding house at the top of the incline controlled the cable system. The ruins of the winding house and the sets for mounting the sleepers are still visible today. Near the top the rows of sleeper blocks are very prominent, as is the spoil of a badger set which has piled up over the incline in the hundred years or so since it was last used. Further quarries were situated on the lower track, which was of standard gauge. In two of the quarries the bosses for mounting cranes can still be seen. The lower track ran past the cottage, over Blacklands Brook, through the gate (Penns Gate) and cutting, across a bridge and an embankment. Here the line should have crossed the Meavy but this single span bridge was never completed.

In 1857 negotiations were in hand with the SDTR but no final agreements seems to have been reached. Wayleave was however paid to Sir Massey Lopes for removal of granite across his land. In 1863 the building of the branch line was underway, but in 1865 the Company went bankrupt. The firm abandoned the project, having used most of the quarries production for the construction work involved. It is difficult to imagine now what the area would look like had the quarrying continued. Much of the granite that formed the embankment was removed in 1952 by Plymouth Corporation and used as part of the construction of the Lopwell Dam on the Tavy.

The cottage became a dwelling, on lease from Goodameavy Manor and the occupants sold teas and water to walkers who travelled out from Plymouth on the railway  (by now the GWR) to Shaugh Platform.

This situation continued until about 1952 when the last occupants (Mr & Mrs Legg) moved out. (Before the Leggs the previous occupants were the Northmores) The cottage then gradually became derelict and fell into ruins.

Biographical Notes:

Mrs Mabel Legg (nee Sercombe) was born in 1907 in Venton. Her family moved to Shaugh Prior when Mabel was quite young. In October 1929 Mabel married Charles Legg in Plympton St Mary. During the Second World War the couple lived in the Dewerstone Cottage and Mabel delivered mail from Roborough to Meavy and Clearbrook. They used part of the Cottage as a tearoom and supplied cream teas to thousands of visitors to Shaugh Woods who used the train to get to Shaugh Halt. In 1956 Mabel was the canteen cook at Shaugh Prior Primary School where she worked until retirement in 1967. Mabel celebrated her 100^th Birthday in February 2007*.

The National Trust acquired the estate in 1960 partly as a gift from the Treasury in lieu of death duties.

In 1963, local Scouts started work on clearing out the cottage.

With the aid of Local Authority and Ministry grants and thanks to such generous supporters of Devon Scouting as Viscount Amory, The Northcott Devon Foundation, Headquarters of the Boy Scouts Association and other friends who preferred to remain anonymous, the derelict building was converted into an adventure and training centre.

The Centre was opened in 1965 by Viscount Amory, Mr Charles Chapman (County Commissioner) and the Rev Sampson (County Executive Committee Chairman). The lease with the National Trust was in the name of Mr Crispin Gill, although this later passed to the Scout Association Trust. Water comes from the brook which flows from Wigford Down alongside the cottage. Mains electricity was put in around springtime 1988. Before that they had a generator.

* Mrs Legg appears in a School photograph taken in 1956. She is the lady sitting on the left of the photograph. Her nephew,Malcolm (Nobby) Clarke, also attended the school he is standing 2nd from the left in the back row between Clive Pundsack and Leslie Quirk in picture 28.

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