Christmas Eve Pootle to Princetown

Heading towards  Princetown via Holn

Blackthorn tree festooned with lichen

The easiest road onto the Moor from Exeter today is via Ashburton and Holn and with little traffic to hinder progress.
Crossing the river Dart near the outward bound school we pause to see the river where dozens of canoeists are enjoying a full spate of  water flow. Ninety inches per year falls up here and it has a long way to go.
December 24th and the gorse bushes are in blossom. It should soon be  possible to enjoy the song of the  skylark high on the Moor from dawn to dusk.

Princetown is reached at midday and The Fox Tor Cafe
newly discovered. This seems to be the eating house of choice for locals and for the bevy of cyclists that have descended upon these tables today. The service is excellent, the food wholesome and generous and the atmosphere warm and friendly.  What more could anyone ask for, so close to Her Majesties Prison, without committing a crime.

Ancient fields of Dartmoor

Actually we were only supposed to park in the main street for  thirty minutes and broke the law a little.

Heading towards Princetown 

Showers heading our way

Holn

Two log burners keep the place very comfortable and for the walkers and cyclists there is a bunk house attached.

The Exhibition of photography we had hoped to view at the Town Hall is unfortunately not open until Boxing day and we happen to have arrived forty eight hours early!

Ancient woodland hides the Dart river

The Morgan almost lost from sight - just 40 Yards away

High road looking north-west towards Chagford.

After this most relaxing all day breakfast meal we head home past the Warren House Inn and Grimspound, Widdecombe and Bovey Tracey.
The Morgan is performing exactly as it should but now looking decidedly mucky. The Royal Ivory is in need of a good clean up. Some marine polish will do - a P.T.F.E..water repellent easy shine (Star-Brite).

The Auction Room

The next boxed lot to go under the hammer

Two days before Christmas may be the best time to buy but the worst time to sell if the auction room is your market place. Prices were struggling and some bargains to be had today.
This was not an upmarket Auction House but a more down to earth Weekly Mecca for the market trader. 

Can I say 40, 45, 50, 50, 50, ?  Make no mistake - Last time. Gone !

Amongst the bric-a-brac debris of every day house clearances anything and everything must go under the hammer, but I am a novice-newbie at the game; only standing in for my son as a call of duty, while he holds a town market stall in the South Hams.

Quiet there at the door PLEASE

I am left with a wad of cash and strict instructions on which items to bid for, give or take a pound or two. Helen came with me this morning to look around and spotted a lovely watercolour and I was give yet more guidance on how high to go, if I wished and yes, I managed to bag it. A marine painting of rough sea and cliffs, dotted about with sea birds and a sailing ship on the horizon.

 It might just be me, or it may just be true, that Antique Dealers and their ilk dress down to a grass root level, rather than up to any smart dress code. The idea is clearly an essential pretence at being so poor that any old ragged jeans will do. A second hand charity shop sweater or drab camouflage garment from the garden shed is ideal.

And one from the Silver Cabinet

Relax its only money !

Checks and balances

Original Watercolour - Christmas present to ourselves

Ebony Elephants TV, fishing rods. Globe, toys, Capo d'Monte figures, 

A box of ceramic Elephants

Boxed toy cars, commercial vehicles, two painted watering cans etc. etc.

Don't forget the Buyers Premium.

No room in the Morgan for this little lot.

One of those Volvo moments when that workhorse machine will be most useful.

Last week it was filled with logs for the wood-burner. Now its essential transport for treasures from the sale room.

Truth and Reconciliation / A personal opinion

Rant No.1  / On our borders

Truth and Reconciliation Commissions are set up in one country after another, not for the redressing of a wrong but to quell an angry public. Oil on troubled waters; except for here in the west, where our establishment has not yet seen a need for truth or reconciliation.
The illusion of cleansing the arena fulfils the need to act on some atrocity committed by the untouchable governors of these countries.
Such Truth and Reconciliation Commissions are not courts of justice empowered to punish but more quango inquisitors.
It has been openly admitted that the invasion of Iraq by Britain in collaboration with America was the single biggest mistake made by Britain since the First World War.
Architects of that fiasco we now know to be the dreadful,  Bush - Blair duo,
and as these two reprobates run amok in our midst, the deeper will go the Islamic Backlash.

The Chilcott Inquiry into the Iraq war, was available within months of the final hearing in February 2011, but is not as yet being published. A suppression of the truth and a national scandal.  More of a cover-up than a revelation, promised "June or July of next year" in order to permit the narcissistic, big mouth T. Blair to orchestrate his defence of the indefensible.

Terrorism today, it seems to me, has its roots in the unexpected consequence of our own actions. That is to say the actions of one despotic leader that led Britain to war in our name. 

Rant No. 2  /  On our doorstep

It has been said that 20% of us will have come into direct contact with some vulnerable person who has suffered, or knows of someone else who has suffered, at the hands of an abuser.

We each of us prefer not to believe an ugly truth but would rather give, or be given, the benefit of the doubt.  It is at this point that an opportunity to right a wrong is won or lost.

Presupposing innocence before guilt is the very cloak behind which an abuser remains concealed. 

Abstinence makes the Church grow fondlers. 

Our Gracious Queen smack Andrew's bottom  -  I don't think so !

British Rail weakest link : Dawlish.

Ongoing repairs to the breached sea wall.

Defending Britains railways against extremes of weather is no more contensious than here at Dawlish where recent breaches have been widely reported during past months.

Storms, floods, extreme weather and cliff erosion.

Early memories of the beach-front include seeing numerous beach huts immediately fronting the Dawlish railway station, where the levels of beach were above the high water mark. During my lifetime a lowering of the beach has occurred of about 14 feet along this section between the main breakwater and the coastguards breakwater. Further along towards Dawlish Warren an even greater loss has been seen, especially between Coastguards and Black Bridge, including the section where the Rail line was  recently breached.

Exmouth in the distance behind Langstone Rock

Before the line was ever built, cliff erosion would have continuously replenished beach material and established the sand and shingle at a fairly constant level, but since the 1841 rail line between Dawlish Warren and Teignmouth  has been here, falls into the sea of cliff face debris has ceased. The very much reduced supply of sand has been in an easterly direction from the Teignmouth Estuary and Labrador Bay, where cliff falls onto the foreshore still occurs. Only lately interrupted due to dredging of the estuary mouth.

Dawlish Warren has fluctuated widely over this time span and Exmouth beach has seen marked gains as the sand gradually drifts eastwards, due to wind and tide (long-shore drift).

In the 1970s much was done to alleviate losses by establishing sea defences along the dunes and railway frontage between Langstone Rock and the Warren point extremity. This involved approximately twenty substantial hardwood (Greenheart) groins and a continuous line of gabbions above high water mark (since covered over by a line of sand dunes).

At Black Bridge beach has disappeared and washed towards Exmouth

The completion of the rail line by I.K. Brunel included the building of multiple wood groins where vertical iron posts driven deep into the sand kept heavy timbers in place. Lengths of iron rail being used and bolted through. 

Years without maintenance have seen these early structures worn away and only a few vestige remnants are to be seen today. Such a pitiful neglect of one of I.K.Brunel's most spectacular feats of civil engineering.

Concerns have been expressed about the future of Dawlish Warren erosion and the loss of wildlife habitat.

The Environment Agency is involved, The Council for the Preservation of Rural England is involved.  South west Water and the local Teignbridge Council is also involved.

The link here to extensive studies by Southampton University, already completed, contains much of interest relevant to the coastal sea defences between Dawlish and Teignmouth. 

Here was once beach sand and pebbles

There are effective solutions to sea erosion already in place at Sidmouth and at part of the rail link close to Langstone Rock, which protects to good effect Dawlish Warren and its Nature Reserve.  However such full measures have not been utilised at Dawlish so leaving the line vulnerable to rough seas.

Overlooked, is the level of beach foreshore that would, if raised, largely absorb the waves' destructive power, before it meets with the vertical walls of the rail line. Today's low beach level permits the largest of waves to batter the wall with full destructive power.

The problem is one of funding and choice - whether to preserve the line or let it deteriorate further.  Coastal erosion, if left unchecked, will no longer permit safe travel along this section of line. Much funding money is supposedly "set aside", whatever that means. 

A small percentage has been spent on repairs. Politicians made their photo calls standing on the Dawlish Station platform, but memories fade and votes are amassed by more expedient means than provision of maintenance programmes to the far south west of Westminster.

Footings placed in recent years

To replenish beach levels a large quantity of sand and rock is required, totalling something in the region of  7.5 million tons. In addition, the breakwaters as seen at Sidmouth should be deployed at Dawlish so that foreshore it is not so easily lost to long-shore drift.

A sum in excess of £8 million has been earmarked for the replenishment of beach at Dawlish Warren BUT NO SUCH PROVISION has yet been planned for preserving beach levels along the railway fronting Dawlish.

The first giant scoops of almost 5m tonnes of earth from deep beneath London have been delivered to the Essex coast, the first step in creating the biggest man made nature reserve in Europe.
The soil, excavated from two 21 kilometer tunnels under the capital, will transform the pancake-flat intensive farmland of Wallasea Island into a labyrinth of mudflats, saltmarshes and lagoons last seen on the site 400 years ago.
The RSPB hopes the new reserve will see the return to England of lost breeding populations of spoonbills and Kentish plovers, as well as increasing already internationally important flocks of avocet, dunlin, redshank and lapwing, along with brent geese, wigeon and curlew in winter.

The cost of Crossrail £14.8 billion or £14,800,000,000  counting all the noughts.

The £8 million earmarked but not yet spent on Dawlish Warren is a paltry 0.054% of the projected cost of London's Crossrail.

Meanwhile the South West Line suffers from lack of protection from the waves at Dawlish.

A few iron posts remain of earlier groins

Looking eastwards this beach will be mostly covered at high tide. Longshore drift carries towards Langstone Rock

From here towards Dawlish Station beach level reduction is most noticeable.

The crane here seen working at ongoing repairs at Sea Lawn where the breach occurred.

No access is permitted through that area at present. (17-12-2014)

View towards Langstone Rock, Dawlish Warren and beyond to Exmouth

Severe losses from Dawlish beach between Coastguards and Langstone Rock (Exposed sewage pipe and remains of groins.

Sidmouth showing three of the stone breakwaters and debris from the same storm that damaged Dawlish Rail line.

Further reading and links:

Teignbridge Plan to protect Dawlish Warren

Exmouth Journal report on dredjing Pole Sands to replenish Dawlish Warren

http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~imw/Dawlish-Warren.htm#headpage

Exmoor, Brendon, A39, "Le Jog" at Porlock hill.

 Lands End to John-O-Groats rally comes through Porlock. I expected to see the famed 25% hill in use but the toll road is now used instead. However a private estate road that caravans use to by-pass Porlock is used instead for the trial. No longer a real test or spectator sport.

Sunrise at the top of Porlock

My way up here by moonlight was a goose chase due to reliance upon the GPS which led me a merry dance and a wrong turn at the Black Cat junction. Not knowing at this stage what time the climb was due to start I made haste to Minehead for fuel where Tesco has it at 1.19p per litre.

From here are views across the Bristol Channel

At Porlock the first person I asked fished out a newspaper cutting from his pocket and it read 3.15pm start so I had a long wait. To use this opportunity to its best I explored Brendon. Approached from the Watersmeet Road this proved to be a really steep, narrow climb and more of a challenge than Porlock. The Exmoor Classic Car museum at Porlock soon opened and I was fortunate to meet the enthusiastic proprietor who was pleased to show me around.

The vintage motor right at the back of the workshop was being worked on and the engine sported some long forgotten engineering quirks ; like the vacuum fuel pump which sucked its petrol up into a chamber complete with internal float and non return valves. (See caption below)

A new day in the life of  the 4/4

A public car park on a private estate

Looking down Porlock A39 and the original route not used by Le Jog

Yes - keep in a low gear is sound advice

Last of the wooden boats in Lynmouth harbour

Watersmeet

Doverhay Garage today

A place of nostalgia

The wheels are pressed sheet steel welded halves to form hollow spokes

Many man hours of work - A labour of love

Steps lead down into the inspection pit

Before the contents were sold in 2012

The original owner had sold up his collection a few years ago but what remains is interesting and to see vintage vehicles in various stages of renovation is well worth the call.

The large can top - left is the vacuum fuel pump

Le Jog   2014

This Porsche wags its tail out of the hairpin on wet leaves