LOCAL HISTORY The Cherub


Higher Street was lined with 14th century houses, their top floors hanging over the street until 1925 when they were demolished. The Cherub Pub, thought to date from 1380 and therefore qualifying as the oldest build- ing in Dartmouth, is renowned for its floral displays. With plaster covering its half timber- ing, it was condemned for demolition long be- fore being rescued and renovated in 1958. It was then a gentlemen’s club, before becoming a pub and restaurant in the 1970s.


Dartmouth Through Time for Amberley Publishing’s Through Time series of local history. thus began a fairly challenging and exciting year of photographing and writing. David Lingard, now curator at Dartmouth Museum, helped me to access more of the archived photographs. Dr richard Porter gave me access to the BrnC archives. Other people, learning about the project, shared their old and new photos of Dartmouth with me and I am especially grateful for the use of these, which are credited in the book. As a keen photographer, a hobby I have been seriously and passionately involved in for a few years now, my real interest was in replicating the photographs as realistically and emotively as possible, so that each could visually tell its story of Dartmouth through time. Of less interest to me, initially, was the text I had to produce for each pair of photographs. However, as I


began to research each location, I became immersed in Dartmouth history, not just the changes made to the look of the town but the stories of the people who shaped the changes and the way the issues of the past affect the town we have now. Although the oldest photograph in the book can probably be dated to 1860, some of the content of the photographs relates to Dartmouth’s earliest days as a settlement, first at townstal where it was safer than beside the river and then as a developing port reliant on growing trade. this in turn funded the merchants who began constructing some of the buildings we still treasure today. I have tried to give each pair of photographs a bit of the Dartmouth story, short anecdotes relating the life in Dartmouth then to Dartmouth now, showing the connections through time, and where possible, using stories which may not be such common knowledge. some of my favourites include the fact


▼ Corner of Mayor’s Avenue and the


Embankment The coal bunking trade, an important part of Dartmouth’s economy in the 19th century, finally came to an end after 100 years when oil replaced coal for ships’ engines. No longer needed by the lumpers, the coal lump- ers’ rest at the corner of Mayors’s Avenue became the site of the clinic, now just a grassy area. The overhead coal conveyor was erected in 1931 to supply the gas works behind Mayor’s Avenue with gas coal, which was unloaded in Kingswear and transported across the river to the conveyor in barges, until that too ended in 1962.


63


▲


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132