Chagford is a small town of considerable charm on the eastern fringes of Dartmoor, set on
a hill above the beautiful countryside surrounding the River Teign. Its economic development
flourished in the mediaeval period after being chosen by Edward I as one of the three
Dartmoor stannary towns through which all exports of tin collected by the moorland tinners
had to pass. By the close of the 16th century the tin-works were all but exhausted, but the
industrial future of the market town was assured by the spinning of wool for the East Devon
weaving towns. Towards the end of the 19th century, the character of the town changed once
again: following the end of its industrial heyday with the closure of the blanket and serge
factory in 1845, Chagford re-invented itself as a popular tourist destination, a role it has
retained to this day.
To the west of the town the parish of Chagford extends well into Dartmoor, rising to a
height of 1432ft. at Kes Tor. There are numerous archaeological remains from the Bronze Age
onwards in this part of the moor, evidence of human settlement in the parish for four
thousand years or longer.
The tourist trade in Chagford was given a fillip in Victorian times when Dartmoor became
more accessible to the general public from the east after the opening in 1866 of the railway
branch line from Newton Abbot to Moretonhampstead, about 5 miles to the south-east of
Chagford.
To the disappointment of the business community, four separate proposals during the 1860s
to extend the line through the Teign Gorge were rejected, and the steam train was never to
reach Chagford. To compensate for this, an omnibus service between the two moorland towns
was introduced in the 1870s: JLW Page, writing in 1893, mentions that Chagford '
now
glories in a 'bus to and from Moretonhampstead Station'[
3, p73]. Sadly for railway enthusiasts this branch line no longer
exists; the passenger service was axed in 1959 and the line was dismantled a few years
later.
Chagford remains a popular tourist destination today, especially for day trippers, leading
to snarl-ups on its narrow roads during the summer months. In Victorian times when the
means of personal transportation was limited, visitors would mostly board in hotels using
Chagford as a base to explore the moors on foot, or to go fishing on the banks of the River
Teign.
Ward and Lock's
pictorial & historical guide to Dartmoor of 1888 encapsulated
the appeal of Chagford and its surroundings to an ever increasing number of summer
visitors[
7,
p40]:
Chagford is greatly resorted to in the summer; by artists, intent on sketching the scenery
in the neighbourhood; by fishermen, who "whip" the Teign and its tributaries, and fill
their baskets with delicious trout; and by visitors of "all sorts and conditions," who come
hither to lay in a store of the good health, for which the dwellers on the Moor are
proverbial, and to see the natural and artificial wonders and the beauties of the
neighbourhood.
In contrast, Page[
3, p73] paints a
sardonic portrait of the sartorial excesses of Chagford's summer visitors in the 1890s:
At Chagford you come upon civilization rather suddenly. Upon civilization in the form of
'blazers' of every hue; in the form of flannels and of tweeds, with those checks - through
which you may jump - wherewith the male biped likes to accentuate the fact that he is
holiday-making. You will meet ladies who for the nonce have cast aside the trappings of
society and are revelling in the shortest of skirts, and - very often - the nattiest of
gaiters, who affect caps 'peaked afore and aft,' a sailor once described them, and cannot
walk a mile from their lodgings without a six-foot alpenstock.
Interestingly, due to the contemporary vogue for acquiring the latest gear for all outdoor
activities, the alpenstock or its modern equivalent seem just as ubiquitous on the moors
today as it appears to have been in the Victorian era.
For a town of its size, Chagford was no laggard when it came to adopting the latest
advances in street lighting. A gasworks was developed on the site of the old woollen mill,
and by 1869 gas was in use to light the streets and some of the houses. An even more radical
change was the installation in 1891 of a generator used to power the street lamps by
electricity. This was the brainchild of George Reed, a local factory owner, engineer and
inventor who epitomized the resourceful zeal of the Victorian age. Reed's Chagford electicity
generating company became the first to the west of London to illuminate a town by electric
street lights[note
1].
The octagonal Market House in the town square is known locally as the Pepper Pot. It is
built on the site of what was once the Stannary Court that met twice yearly to assay
the tin and levy the tax or coinage on the smelted metal brought in by the tinners.
During one particularly crowded meeting in the early 17th century, proceedings were brought
to an abrupt halt with fateful consequences as Westcote recounts[5, p430]:
Now are we come to Chegford, alias Chagford, the fourth place we are to speak of where a
tin-court is held; which was very lamentable the 1st August, 1616, for the court held that
day, the chamber wherein it was kept stood upon pillars, and those decayed, and the
assembly at that court greater than ordinary, the pillars and timber cleft in sunder and
the walls fell in, and the steward, a gentleman of good descent and a counsellor-at-law,
and nine others were suddenly slain; many more had their arms and legs broken, being
covered in the timber and stones;
. . . but that which seemeth most strange, a little child was taken up from among the slain
not anything hurt; which is not to be alighted, though not to be made a wonder: for we know
who saith that their angels do always behold the face of our Father which is in heaven.
Chagford in the early 1640s was the setting for two remarkable killings, one a crime of
passion, the other a casualty of war.
Mary Whiddon was a descendent of the Justice of the King's Bench Sir John Whiddon (or
Whyddon) who died in 1575, and whose tomb in the chancel of St Michael's Church is adorned
with an ornate renaissance memorial. The unfortunate Mary was shot dead by a jealous suitor
as she walked out of the Church after her wedding ceremony on 11th October 1641. So cruelly
struck down in her prime, this young lady was buried in the church; nowadays newly-wed
brides often lay a flower on her tomb after signing the register. The inscription on her
memorial stone includes this epitaph:
Reader, would'st though know who here is laid,
Behold a matron, yet a maid
A modest look, a pious heart
A Mary for the better part
But dry thine eyes, why wilt thou weep
Such damselles do not die, but sleep.
Little more is known about Mary, save that she was the brother of Rowland Whiddon, a
Justice of the Peace during the Commonwealth interregnum who rebuilt the Elizabethan
family seat by Whiddon Deer Park at the entrance to the Teign Gorge. Whiddon Park House
bares the date 1649 above the door.
RD Blackmore is said to have based his popular classic Lorna Doone on the life story of
Mary Whiddon, though the setting for the novel was Exmoor in North Devon.
Of the two public houses in Chagford facing St Michael's Church, the most historically
noteworthy is the Three Crowns Inn dating from Tudor times. It was here where the young poet
and politician Sidney Godolphin is said to have died during the Civil War. In February 1643
Sir John Berkeley and a small band of Royalist soldiers including Godolphin attacked and
dispersed some parliamentarian forces who were quartered at Chagford. In the skirmish that
followed, the 33 year old poet was lost to a single round of musket fire. The Earl of
Clarendon paid this tribute to him in his famous history of the Civil War[4]:
In those necessarily and brisk expeditions in falling upon Chagford, a little town in the
south of Devon, before day, the king lost Sidney Godolphin, a young gentleman of
incomparable parts; who, being of a constitution and education more delicate, and
unacquainted with contentions, upon his observation of the wickedness of those men in the
House of Commons, of which he was a Member, out of the pure indignation of his soul against
them, and conscience to his country, had, with the first, engaged himself with that party
in the West; and though he thought not fit to take command in a profession he had not
willingly chosen, yet as his advice was of great authority with all the commanders, being
always one in the council of war, and whose notable abilities they had still use of in
their civil transactions, so he exposed his person to all action, travel, and hazard; and
by too forward engaging himself in this last, received a mortal shot by a musket a little
above the knee, of which he died in the instant; leaving the misfortune of his death upon a
place which could never otherwise have had a mention to the world.
There are a number of ancient standing stone monuments on the eastern side of Dartmoor and to the north of
Chagford that are worthy of a visit. Find out more about a selection of these by
clicking on any of the markers in the interactive map below. The pop-up windows
include a link to an enlargement of the small image, or to a page giving historical
background information about the antiquity. One or two other locations of interest are
also marked on the map.
For the technically minded, what Reed installed was a 2000 volt single phase alternator
operated by an old water wheel working under 14 ft. head at a disused woollen mill on the
River Teign ¼ mile upstream from Chagford Bridge. The supply was at 100 cycles
with hedgehog transformers supplying lamps at 100v.
History of Chagford by Jane Hayter-Hames, Phillimore, 1981.
This edition is now out-of-print, but the author mentioned to me that
a reprint is available locally. Copies can be purchased from either
James Bowden or Webbers, the two splendid hardware stores that stand side-by-side
in the centre of Chagford.
Devon by W.G. Hoskins, Collins, 1954; new ed., Phillimore, 2003.
The Rivers of Devon from Source to Sea by John Lloyd Warden Page, London, 1893.
†
The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England by Edward Hyde, first Earl
of Clarendon, Oxford, 1704. Volume II, part 1, p175. †
A view of Devonshire in 1630 by Thomas Westcote, Exeter, 1845. †
Magna Britannia: volume 6 - Devonshire by Daniel and Samuel Lysons, 1822.
The parish
of Chagford. Lysons' work gives 1328 as the year when Chagford was granted Stannary
Town status, whereas other authorities say it was 1305. †
Ward and Lock's pictorial & historical guide to Dartmoor: its tors, antiquities,
and other interesting features. London and New York: Ward, Lock, and Co., 1888.
† signifies that the book can be accessed in its entirety via the internet.
| | last modified on 07 Jun 2010
