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Burrator Reservoir
Burrator Reservoir photos
Displaying the first of 6 old photos of Burrator Reservoir. View all Burrator Reservoir photos
Burrator Reservoir maps
Historic maps of Burrator Reservoir and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Burrator Reservoir maps
Burrator Reservoir area books
Displaying 1 of 26 books about Burrator Reservoir and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Burrator Reservoir
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Devon memories
Childhood Holidays
My grandparents lived at Clearbrook, and as a child I used to spend nearly all of my summer holidays with them. I used to love going for rides on the train to Tavistock and Princetown. My gran took me on a train to Princetown just before the line closed. Other times I used to wander for miles over the moors and down the meadows by the River Plym. Some of my happiest childhood memories are of Clearbrook, it's a place that I have always promised myself that I would visit again, but have not seen it since the early 1960s. My gran had to move into a care home in Plymouth after the railway closed as she could no longer get her own shopping and provisions.
Your photos brought back many memories, especially the first one showing the entrance to Arch Lynn, so close to my grandparents' home. Tears in my eyes time. Thank You.
Bagpuss
A section of this photograph was used by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate for one of the opening sequences in the programme Bagpuss. This was confirmed in 1978 when a Horrabridge resident wrote to the Bagpuss programme and received a reply from Mrs Joan Firmin giving an account of how the picture used came from an old postacrd album which now belonged to her.
The wheelwrights yard is shown on the left and the view is looking south to Station Road taken from the north side of the bridge. This scene has changed little in the last 100 years and is still recognisable today.
Duchy Hotel
This is a photo of The Duchy Hotel. This later became Dartmoor Prisons' "Prison Officers Mess". It has now become The Dartmoor National Park Visitor Centre. My dad was an officer or "screw" at Dartmoor Prison for many years and we used to have our Sunday lunch here. The kitchen and waiting staff were all convicts!
Bowdens Cafe
The second building down on the right was Bowdens Cafe (now Fox Tor Cafe).....My Grandparents, George and Clare Moss had the cafe from 1946 and my parents took over in 1958 Eric and Clare Cragg....My Grandparents then moved to Duchy House and started a B&B. I remember a great childhood growing up in Princetown, playing by the leet and riding the ponies. I now live in Australia and have been here since 1963. Thank you for the lovely memories and photos of Princetown
The Duchy & Princetown
The Duchy Hotel brings back many fond childhood memories, at that time it was run by a gentleman called Joe, Uncle Joe to me and my sis. Yes, the staff were all convicts. I remember being pushed around on a large floor broom by one of the convicts working there, my dad was a prison officer at Dartmoor Prison at the time, Samual Bibby. I remember having a huge birthday party at the mess and Sunday dinners!, I remember the leet and how much fun we had swimming in it, the church, the old vicarage, and the wonderfull walks my mum would take us on across the moors with the dog, (we were the family with the Pyrenean Mountain dog!!). In those hot hot summer days, golden childhood memories I will cherish forever, I plan on returning for a visit in 2009, a long awaited return as I have not been back since leaving many years ago, an amazing place to have been part of.
Princetown
I remember living in Princetown in Woodville Close, my dad worked at the prison, Paddy O'Neill. I started school in Princetown and don't have many good memories of the school, in fact on my first day I walked out and went home at morning playtime and was dragged back through the village by my mum. I really did not like Princetown Primary School, I recall having to ask the teacher if you needed toilet paper and you were issued one square of Izal paper. I remember the bilzzards and snow from 1963 and going down to the shop with our sledge to fetch the shopping for mum, also a lady being helicoptered out of the village in labour as the roads were all blocked with snow for weeks. The worst memory was of the teachers at school putting our morning milk on the radiators and then making us drink it all, God, was I sick, and I have never drunk milk since! I recall vividly all the freedom and all... Read more
Great Times, And Lots of Freedom
My family lived here from 1972-77, as my father was an officer in the prison. We lived next to the then working dairy at Tor View. The village had escorted prisoners all over the village, and the farms and quarries were all in full operation, we even played football in the car park with the cons, during their breaks and lunch. Sitting in the kids' room at the Plume on cold winter nights, or the disco at the social club or just messing about by the boys' or girls' pool on the river. It was so much fun, no PS3 or X Box, no mobile phones. It was all adventure and exploring. Dinner in the officers' mess on Sundays, wow, these were great days, never to be replaced, it was a very close society, and I'm glad I was part of it, even with the deep snow and rain in winter...
