101
Nowadays it has a peacetime role of providing a roost for a colony of horseshoe bats. In 2001, the St Mary- church & District Action Group raised funds for a conservation project to protect the bats already living in the pill box, and with help from the Devon Bat Group and the Torbay Coast & Countryside Trust, a group of volunteers refurbished the building and provided additional roosting spaces.
Horseshoe bats are an endangered species in Britain, and the greater horseshoe bat is only found in South West England and South Wales. The decline in their numbers is due to the loss of woodland and other roosting sites, as well as the use of pesticides to kill the insects on which they feed. Widespread use of chemicals toxic to bat populations used to treat timber provides another threat, although the use of these is diminishing.
Horseshoe bats are named after the distinctive flap of skin over their noses, part of the complex system they use for navigation and hunting, known as ‘echolocation’. This system works like sonar: the bats send out a signal, measuring the time the sound takes to return, and its volume, to identify what is ahead and how far away it is. The bat uses the difference in the time delay and volume of the sound in each ear, relative to the other, to
triangulate the position of the object which has reflected the signal.
Carry on along the Coast Path towards Torquay. The cliffs below Daddyhole Plain and the steep ground southwards towards Torquay Harbour, known as Rock End Walk, are managed by the Torbay Coast and Countryside Trust, an independent local charity dedicated to looking after some of Torbay’s most significant heritage and wildlife sites (see the Maidencombe Walk). In Victorian times the area was laid out as gardens and a pleasure walk, but since then it has been declared a Site of Special Scientific Interest
and a County Wildlife Site and has been allowed to return to a more natural state. At Peaked Tor Cove itself, however, the Trust has worked with the local community to create a more formal garden.
Daddyhole is particularly noted for the geological features in its limestone cliffs, especially the fossils it contains such as corals, and alternating bands of shales and limestones. These have given geol- ogists an understanding of the kind of life forms that once lived in the shallow seas where these rocks were laid down. There are also a number of rare plants flourishing in the calcium-rich soil above, including the nationally rare white rock rose and ivy broomrape, an upright reddish purple plant with scaly leaves and cream-coloured flowers.
3. When you reach Parkhill Road, turn left towards the harbour. Until 1903 Beacon Cove, below, was reserved as a ‘ladies only’ bathing beach, complete with bathing ma- chines. This was a favourite swim- ming venue of local novelist Agatha Christie when she was a child.
4. At the harbour, cross the Millennium Bridge, turn right and walk around the harbour, turning right again onto the Strand.
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