Holne one

Started our visit to Holne with a quiet day. A walk around Vennford Reservoir - noting in passing that South West Water have not bothered to answer my query about how water got from there to Paignton, for whose needs the reservoir was originally built to service - although a correspondent suggests that it probably involved large cast iron pumps laid in shallow trenches over the hills, plus one or more pumping stations. Perhaps coal and steam driven?

A low scoring game of Scrabble, which I won, BH being blocked by an early arriving, hard to place 'Q'. She does not think it very sporting to change some letters by missing a go.

Lunched off some fine pork belly from the butcher at Lyme Regis. Served, as ever, with boiled rice and boiled vegetables. Not a goo in sight, brown or otherwise. Much better than the stuff we get in Epsom. Much better than what one usually gets in public houses, be the dining ever so fine. Snapped above in the new-to-us bottled-gas fired oven that had turned up in our cottage.

A walk for two towards the village, followed by a walk for one up onto the moor, getting as far as the leat supplying water to one of the farms thereabouts. Blackberries still there for the picking in the lanes, so a month later than Epsom. Maybe it is the height that slows them down.

The next day was rather busier, being the day for a visit to Yelverton, on this occasion to Hart Care at Ravenscroft, the people at reference 1.

Start off with a cow stop in and around Hexworthy. That is to say having to wait behind a small herd of large brown cows being move from one side of Hexworthy to the other. A move which including a sub-herd escaping up the drive of what appeared to be a large house, the lead cow-herd (the farmer's wife in a real Land Rover), not having noticed that the gate was open. We thought that to do the job properly you really needed four people. One out in front, one just in front of the cows, one just behind and one out back to stop the cars spooking the cows. But your average smaller farmer on the moor is not going to be able to manage that.

First stop at Yelverton, was Bidder the butcher where I was able to stock up on white puddings, country style. That is to say not wrapped in clear plastic. Second stop was the café for tea and teacakes. BH probably took some sort of coffee, not being a stickler for tradition in this particular matter. Third stop was Ravenscroft.

All very smart and proper, and, as is commonly the case with these places, having a large house as the core with various bits and bobs tacked on. The bits and bobs now amounting to rather more than the original house. This last being one of a pair of houses put up at about the time that Yelverton was coming into being as a posh suburb of Plymouth, say 150 years ago. Just the place for successful businessmen and their wives to retire to. I think there used to be a piano showroom for them.

Visiting credentials snapped above. Not that anyone asked to see them, although to be fair, BH probably told them that we had done the test and her word was good enough for them.

On to the Honey bakery at Horrabridge where I bought rock cakes, current buns (Chelsea bun format), a white olive loaf and a couple of small white loaves. The bakery with the giant cast iron oven, once coke driven, occupying a good part of the shop. The were a lot of cakes (loaf tin format), so perhaps that was an important line of business, it not being obvious how Horrabridge could carry a decent baker, while Epsom could not.

On to the Drake Manor Inn at Buckland Monachorum, seated inside on this occasion, rather than the rather drafty tent across the road. Liver and bacon, broccoli, mange-tout and mash. Plus a rich gravy: water, corn flour, brown dye, a little oil, a little sugar, a few E numbers and off you go. Universal brown goo for use in restaurants. Do they buy the stuff in in gallon tins? Do they buy it powder form: add water and stir? Do they actually make the stuff up themselves? But I carp. It was good to have liver at all. Hot chocolate cake, cold ice cream topped off with various drizzles and so forth. All served by a couple of pleasant young ladies. All very satisfactory.

As was the fact that the steps down to the little village stream were still there, for those eco-warriors who like to do the family wash that way, just like the villagers of old.

Now to get to the Inn we had come through the oddly named village of Crapstone, and on the way out we passed a lump of roadside rock which might have been the stone in question, actually Roborough Rock at the southern end of Roborough Down. A very flat bit of ground and there were what looked like vestiges of war. We wondered whether there had been some sort of air defence facility for Plymouth up here during the war.

Round the back.

What looked like a gun emplacement.

Mains water supply? The labels suggest Glenfield, with there being one of these in the US and another in Australia, but this one is probably something to do with the people at reference 5.

While today, Bing turns up reference 6 for RAF Harrowbeer. So the place was indeed an airfield, inter alia providing air defence for Plymouth to the south. While the officers' mess appears to have been in what had been a school, now Hart Care, as above. Snapped above for future reference, as we got into a bit of a muddle this time around with exactly where Hart Care was.

A curiously rugged memorial to the jubilee of Good Queen Vic, set at the side of the road, a memorial which suggests that Yelverton was certainly up and running as a high-end suburb of Plymouth by the end of the 19th century. Updated on the other side with a memorial to the jubilee of our own queen. Checking this morning in Webster's, I find that 'jubilee' was originally a Hebrew word to do with fiftieth anniversaries of important events and perhaps to do with the rams' horns used in the attendant celebrations. Now applied, in the UK anyway, to the fiftieth and certain greater anniversaries of the assumptions (or perhaps the coronations) of long reigning monarchs. Commoners have to settle for simple anniversaries.

Home to finish off 'Aguirre' from the Herzog-Kinski collaboration. Suffice it to say for the present that this was one of the discs in a rather grand boxed set, picked up quite by chance at CeX here at Epsom.

PS 1: I forgot to mention that on the way to Holne we paid a long overdue visit to Trago Mills, a place we have not visited for many years. To be visited online at reference 4. A place which started out as a giant shed full of discounted goods and which is now upping its game to include lakes, gardens, market stalls and other cuddly stuff outside. While the sheds have got even bigger. A sort of cross between a big Co-op store on a bad day and T.K.Maxx. A giant version of Roy's of Wroxham. And you got in past a line of serious electricity pylons: all most impressive as one does not usually get that close to them. Presumably running up to the stuff noticed at reference 3. There was also a large canteen, complete with the usual facilities, so BH was able to take her mid-morning coffee, albeit a touch late.

The rather grand atrium snapped above. Just as well they sold buckets, although the lady told off to clean up was not impressed. She claimed the roof was leaking all the time.

An interesting take on wheel back chairs in the cafeteria. But a light and airy facility, well judged to the place as a whole.

PS 2: I used to know a chap from TB who got all his fishing gear from Trago Mills. You had to sort through the heap a bit, but there was usually some good stuff there, going very cheap.

References

Reference 1: https://www.hartcare.co.uk/.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/05/buckland-monachorum.html. The last outing of this sort, just about six months ago.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/10/critical-national-infrastructure.html.

Reference 4: https://www.trago.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://www.glenfieldinvicta.co.uk/homePage/.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Harrowbeer.