Tavistock Wanderings

[bunn]

 Seems ages since I posted photos of just randomly wandering about, so here are a couple of photos of my walk along the Tavistock Canal.  It's an astonishingly shallow canal nowadays, only about 2-3 inches deep, and I think this bridge and gate is more decorative than functional.  It's a pleasant walk, though, and you can park by the pet shop which is much appreciated by Theo. He likes both the dried sausages, and the chance to go around saying hello to the staff. 

Both of them on the lead, because there are sheep not so very far away, and although the sheep are fenced off the footpath the footpath is up above the fence, and frankly I don't trust either hound not to try to leap from on high into the centre of a ring of sheep.  Which would be awful.

And I'm putting this in too, though it wasn't the same day, because the Lemon Grove is a brand new cafe that has sprung up in Tavi despite all adversity, so we bravely went and had crepes and this amazing milk shake with strawberries onna stick. This was in the time before they brought in the extra rules about masks when entering cafes, though at the moment the idea seems to be to try to keep eating places open if possible, but require masks for staff and people coming and going. 

Comments

[grundyscribbling]

That is quite the milkshake!

The photos of your walk are lovely. (Though I am now trying and failing to picture Rosie leaping down among the sheep...)

[bunn]

It would be terrifying and epic! The canal tow-path is... probably about six feet above the top of the field, and although Rosie would normally not consider a 6-foot leap, everything is different when she's in Hot Pursuit! You should have seen her dancing with Theo in the garden this morning. :-D

[anna_wing]

It all looks lovely! What was the canal used for before? Irrigation? It looks very narrow. Has it silted up, to be so shallow?

[bunn]

I think it must have silted up, because it was a serious industrial canal, believe it or not. I've just checked, and it was designed to be 3 feet deep, originally.

It was built to bring silver-lead ore, copper and slate from Dartmoor down to the river Tamar and also to connect Tavistock to the river in the hope of stimulating industry there. There's a 1.5 mile tunnel a bit further on, completed in 1818.

It's quite a feat of engineering, because it slopes gently, so there's a water flow, which meant they could more easily take heavy stuff downstream, then tow the boats back up with horses. Plus use it as a power source, it still runs a hydroelectric plant a bit downstream of this photo.