Mary Tavy
| Mary Tavy | |
| Devon | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Mary Tavy | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SX5079 |
| Location: | 50°35’29"N, 4°7’14"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 600 (approx) |
| Post town: | Tavistock |
| Postcode: | PL19 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | West Devon |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Torridge and West Devon |
Mary Tavy is a village in Devon, with a population of around 600. It is found four miles north of Tavistock, close to the River Tavy, from which it takes its name. On the other side of the valley, a mile or two south, is Peter Tavy; both were shown as separate settlements in the Domesday Book entry of 1086. The village is on Dartmoor, at the edge of the National Park.
Mary Tavy comes in two separated and distinctive parts; the larger part and that most familiar to passers by is at the top of the hill on the main A-road to Tavistock; a clutch of streets of cottages, a chapel, a shop, a pair of pubs and an abandoned coach garage, with the village war memorial on a small green. The old village though, the prettier part and its heart, lies to the south is at the bottom of the hill, houses and farms strung along a lane beside the Cholwell Brook, down to the church, St Mary's, below which the lane shrinks into a muddy track.
The village does not quite run down to the Tavy itself, but the lane runs down towards it and becomes a rough bridleway entering woods. The bridleway emerges at the river and is borne across by a footbridge, which path and then wanders across the fields to Peter Tavy. This path was once the main road to Tavistock.
Parish church
St Mary's Parish Church is a modest church from the outside. It is typical of Devon and Cornwall in its granite construction and narrow, square, pinnacled west tower, but within the decoration is anything but typical.
A Norman church stood here, and bare traces of it remain. In the 15th century, after the Black Death, the church was rebuilt essentially to what is seen today. A restoration was carried out in 1879; a new south transept was put in, the roof wholly replaced (except in the south porch) and the chancel extended by 6 feet, amongst other things. From this time the interior decoration was carried out too.
The interior decoration was carried out under the directions of the Rector, the Rev Irvine Kempe Anderson, who was an enthusiastic follower of the Oxford Movement, and one of his predecessors, the Rev Anthony Buller has been the author of one of the Oxford tracts. The Oxford Movement promoted practices which scandalised the Church at the time, introducing practices suppressed at the Reformation; the "smells and bells" approach. The interior decoration reflects this; a rood screen, a painted crucifix and statues of Mary and John, and detal more to be expected in a Roman church than one in the firmly Protestant West Country.
Mines and history
Close by the village is a mine which was in its day the world's largest copper mine; Wheal Friendship. Also round about are other lead and tin mines; the ruined engine house of Wheal Betsy looks over the valley north of Mary Tavy and is seen prominently from the road over the moor. Signs in the village remain straying walkers of the danger from old mine-shafts.
To deter highwaymen from attacking travellers along the road between Tavistock and Okehampton, captured highwaymen were hanged from a gibbet on what is now known as 'Gibbet Hill'.
The writer William Crossing was for part of his life resident at Mary Tavy and is buried in the churchyard. It is he who popularied Dartmoor as a visitor destination and who wrote the first definitive book for serious walkers on the moor, published in 1909.
The Canadian financier James Henry Plummer was born in Mary Tavy.
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Mary Tavy) |