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With a week of blisteringly hot temperatures, Rupert and I decided to head to some tree‑lined paths on the edge of East Dartmoor along the River Bovey and then descend into the perfect picture‑postcard villages of Pethybridge and Lustleigh. If anyone was to imagine the quintessential Devon villages, I would guess many would conjure up images of what we were to see on this beautiful July day.
We parked at Pullabrook Wood just to the south of Lustleigh close to Yarner Wood and under the shadow of Black Hill. From here we started walking upstream into Pullabrook Wood which is very much an active area for the timber industry. This had the added benefit of actually being able to find a functioning portaloo in tip‑top condition. You rarely find such toiletry delights on our journeys! I took full advantage of the facilities before carrying on climbing towards the Dartmoor Way.
The bend in the Bovey turns north‑westwards and we descended down the all‑important tree‑lined pathway. The sun has been blisteringly hot of late; the shade was most welcome. Eventually we turned off the Dartmoor Way to head to the picturesque Hisley Packhorse Bridge. Given the steep terrain in this area, only packhorses would be able to traverse this terrain, hence this unusually sharp bridge that no wagon or carriage could ever have traversed. Local farmers and merchants would use it to move livestock or goods between Lustleigh and Manaton and surrounding farms. This idyllic location made it very popular whilst we were there. Lots of families and walkers were enjoying the beautiful location.
After Rupert refreshed himself we headed up the hill into Hisley Wood – still with the all‑important shade from the trees for most of the way. We were heading to a bridle path towards Pethybridge but a split in the path not marked on the Ordnance Survey Map and without any signposts flummoxed us a little. We kept to the right thinking that was the way to Pethybridge in general, but it just seemed to be taking us back towards our car park! Fortunately, just before we considered turning around and retracing our steps it kindly provided the necessary U‑bend to allow us to head back to the way we wanted to go. Eventually it brought us back out at the bridle path – but for such a big path to be omitted from the maps seemed a little incongruous.
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We eventually climbed to the top of the ridge and were treated to glorious views to the west and to the east. We started to lose the shade from the trees although substantial hedges provided some cover as we began our descent towards Pethybridge. Not before too long we reached some tarmac for the incredibly narrow lanes around here. We veered left down into Pethybridge along roads that warned cars very much not to even consider driving along these roads. The proliferation of these funny signs made us think that visitors and perhaps especially delivery drivers were frequently led astray by their naughty satnavs and fooled into thinking that their car might squeeze through if they breathed in enough.
Pethybridge itself soon presented itself as full of stunning Devon cottages with impressive thatched roofs and bulbous walls that seem as if they have put on weight in older age! Either that or they are trying to make life even more difficult for passing cars and vans! Every direction you look appeared to be a genuine picture postcard of the type you remember from childhood holidays. And as if Pethybridge isn’t pretty enough, its height gives you stunning views down towards Lustleigh below and equally pretty thatched houses scattered along the valley. It felt like we had entered a film set. Perhaps this was the inspiration for ‘The Shire’ of Tolkien’s imagination; it certainly epitomises what many of us think of when we imagine Devonshire.
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Lustleigh’s church may be deep in the valley, but it still found a way of announcing its presence to us, our eyes constantly drawn to it from a variety of angles as it emerged and disappeared again behind trees and foliage. We carried on our descent but took some footpaths to the west of the village and then followed one of the streams into the orchard at Lustleigh. This little park is definitely worth visiting as you are met by a very unusual stone chair atop a huge slab of granite. All around it are names of young ladies carved on it. What might this be? It is the chair where Lustleigh’s May Queen is crowned each year.
Rupert and I had our lunch under a tree next to this delightful throne under an apple tree (I did say it was the orchard) in a strong breeze. Indeed at times the wind was so heavy some of the young apples were falling around us. Fortunately none hit us, but they did startle you. But the view itself was worth the danger. We really were in a pastoral idyll.
After lunch we walked the few yards into the village itself. The buildings continued to delight but I have to say that the cars definitely spoiled the picture‑postcard imagery. Narrow roads, steep hillsides and centuries‑old buildings have left little room to accommodate car parking. Indeed this was the reason we parked well out from the village. We saw cars really struggle to pass one another and find any of the all‑too‑precious car parking spots. But if you could look past the cars, the thatched houses once again enchanted. It was a Sunday so the shops were closed but there was a café serving cream teas (the Devon way of course) and a pub.
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We though were drawn like a magnet to St John the Baptist’s Church. Now this church, even by the standards of Devon, has some serious ancestry to it. The chancel is in the Early English 12th‑century style. There are two 13th‑century effigies, possibly of the Dinham (Dynham) family who we came across recently with our visit to St Michael’s Church in Ilsington (which was next door to the Dinham Manor House). St John the Baptist’s also has a 14th‑century mortuary chapel to Sir William de Prowz complete with his effigy. And it has a delightfully carved rood screen from the reign of Queen Mary complete with Aragon pomegranates and wonderfully carved grotesque heads at the top of each archway. But what gives it real antiquity was the discovery of a tomb slab thought to date from the 6th century. It is inscribed DATUIDOCI CONHINOCI FILIUS; which just means, Datiudoc son of Conhinoc. But it means that we have possibly the descendants of Romano‑British very early Christians on this site. It is not unusual to find a Norman church built on the site of an earlier Saxon church (and indeed this one probably was too), but to find one built on the site of a pre‑Saxon religious site is even more impressive still. It may not have been a church, which were almost unheard of at that time. It is more likely to be the site of an early Christian graveyard which itself may have been of an older antiquity, perhaps into the Roman era? The thought of so many centuries of Christian worship on this one site really is humbling.
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Given my interest in Imperial history there is one famous family commemorated here who I already knew were connected to this village. This is the Amery family who had not one but two very famous sons. Born in India, Leo Amery was one of the most important British politicians of the first half of the twentieth century. He was to become one of Winston Churchill’s most important allies. Indeed it was Leo Amery who delivered the famous “In the name of God, go!” reprise of Oliver Cromwell’s in a speech to Neville Chamberlain in the aftermath of the calamitous Norwegian campaign. This debate paved the way for Winston Churchill to become Prime Minister shortly after. He also played a very important role in the First World War. He was involved in the drafting of the famous ‘Balfour Declaration’ that first provided the idea of a homeland to Jews in the Middle East. But what is interesting is that he was the man responsible for inserting the clause after the idea of a national home for the Jewish people which read “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non‑Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” Why this is particularly interesting is that it was only decades after his death that it was discovered that Leo Amery was Jewish himself through his Hungarian mother. There is a certain irony, albeit a pleasingly humanitarian one, that the person with a Jewish connection in helping to write the Balfour Declaration should be the one insisting on honouring the rights of the Arabs and Christians in Palestine. History is never straightforward but it is clear that Leo Amery was trying his hardest to allow all the peoples of the region to call Palestine their home. Sadly, events were not to play out as he hoped.
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There was to be another disappointment in Leo Amery’s life with his eldest son, John Amery. John had always been a rebellious child but in the interwar years was attracted to Fascism. As it was failing to find traction in England, John moved to France and in 1936 volunteered to work for General Franco in the Spanish Civil War. When the Germans invaded France in 1940 he found himself in occupied Europe. In 1942 he was recruited by the Nazis to help make propaganda radio programmes. Hitler met and liked John Amery’s company. Eventually John asked to create a British wing of the Waffen SS and was allowed to travel to prisoner‑of‑war camps to try and recruit soldiers to what was called The British Free Corps. This was to be an unmitigated disaster with the vast majority of prisoners openly hostile to his pleas. The unit only ever mustered a couple of dozen men at the most and was used for propaganda purposes mostly interspersed with drinking and whoring. John later moved to Italy to help Mussolini after he had been rescued by the Germans. But in 1945 his luck ran out and he was captured in Italy by Partisans who handed him over to the British Army. John was flown back to England to be tried in the Tower of London as a traitor alongside the other notorious collaborator William Joyce, better known as Lord Haw Haw. John pleaded guilty and was hanged at Wandsworth Prison. There are so many ironies here you don’t really know where to begin. John Amery did not know that his own grandmother was Jewish. He would have been exterminated himself under Nazi rule had anyone found out. The other irony is that nobody did more than his father to establish a Jewish homeland which was to receive a turbo boost in political dynamism upon the discovery of the concentration camps and the extent of the Nazi Holocaust. And on top of this, nobody did more than Leo Amery to put Winston Churchill into Number 10 to defeat Hitler and destroy Fascism once and for all.
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But there is another Amery from John’s generation who was to follow his father in more constructive ways. This was Julian Amery, the younger brother of John. Funnily enough Julian found himself in the Spanish Civil War on the Fascist side too, although in his case it was as a war correspondent. He then moved to Belgrade as a Foreign Office attaché. This Balkan experience would be put to good use during the Second World War when he was assigned to the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to work with the Albanian Resistance. Later he was assigned to work in supporting Chiang Kai‑shek in his fight against the Japanese. After a colourful military career he followed his father into politics. He would become the Minister of Aviation in the 1960s and was heavily involved in the development of Concorde. He remained an MP until 1992 when he retired but was created appropriately enough Baron Amery of Lustleigh. Both he and his father are buried in the churchyard. His brother John was not afforded any such privilege. Indeed for 50 years his ashes were the property of the British government as he had been a traitor. Julian eventually got permission to take control of his older brother’s ashes and took them to France where he had lived to have them scattered in the country that he called home. A nice gesture of reconciliation from a family with a history for reconciliation.
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Oh, we also found the grave of James Bond in the churchyard – but given that he died in the 19th century we are sceptical it is Ian Fleming’s hero! There is a lovely heritage centre there, sadly closed on Sundays, which once upon a time was a school paid for by subscription by the people of Lustleigh and organised by the Reverend William Davy in 1825. This was the era before government involvement in education and showed that the local community wanted to provide educational opportunities for the local children. It is interesting that it reads that it also had a meadow to help provide an income ‘for supporting a school forever!’ I guess when governments took over education there was no further use for this. It is pleasing that at least it has continued in an educational manner through the heritage centre which now occupies it and uses it.
We walked down the hill to find the Baptist Church, walking along yet more pretty roads lined with charming thatched cottages. Sadly the Baptist Church no longer appears to be operational despite a sign optimistically saying that they meet every Sunday at 10:30. It looked well and truly boarded up. We had a quick rummage around the overgrown non‑conformist graveyard there and were fascinated to find an Amery grave. Clearly one of the family had left the Anglican tradition for the Baptists. When you combine the Judaism into the mix, this family had quite the religious journey.
We then walked back towards the car past the old mill. We could see the old disused railway arches on the other side of the river. We stopped briefly at the out‑of‑town cemetery. Clearly the churchyard had been full to bursting and when illnesses like cholera came along, even the most remote communities were keen to move their dead far from their houses. One does have to wonder how people attend the burial services here as there is nowhere to park whatsoever and it is down the tiniest lane you can imagine. I cannot imagine a hearse negotiating this road with ease. There were a number of war graves here and quite a few ex‑soldiers who had died in their beds in peacetime with their ranks or decorations displayed. There was not much shelter here from the sun though, so after getting rehydrated we returned back to our car park for some much‑needed cold drinks I had stored in a cooler with plenty of ice. Nothing like a cold drink after a hot day’s walk. We had evaded the sun as much as we could, but there was no denying it was still a warm one.
There are so many beautiful places in Devon, but few walks can have such a quantity of pretty views and vistas as this one. It really did feel like we were walking through what you imagine Devon looks like. But this is not just a landscape of fudge boxes or postcards; this is a landscape steeped in history, from the earliest days of Christianity on these islands, to a rural economy, to its great and its good engaging and helping to shape the borders of the wider world, and even to treachery and heroism in the fight against tyranny. You don’t just find Devon in these valleys; you find the history of the world here.
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