A Dartmouth Girl in Dartmouth

I was raised in Dartmouth, Massachusetts so it seemed obvious that I would visit Dartmouth, Devon. I visited last year and learned all about the history of Dartmouth and saw the "must-sees" and if you're interested in those things I invite you to check out last year's post here.

Because it was a nice, sunny day we chose to just do touristy, not educational, things. We decided that there was no better way to enjoy a day in Dartmouth than to take a Dartmouth river cruise. There are several companies that offer these, but we chose the Dartmouth Steam Railway and Riverboat Company. It turned out to be a very good choice.

We boarded the boat and found seats on the top deck.

Sitting behind me was a woman with a pug on her lap.

Almost as entertaining as the narrative of the captain was the narrative of this woman - to her dog. It started with "Darling, I hope you enjoy this. I know how you enjoy seeing the sights and I bought you your very own ticket." At one point I heard her say in frustration, "Darling, you're sleeping! You're missing everything! I don't understand why you wanted to do this cruise if you're not going to pay attention." It was a little funny, but also a bit sad.

Anyway, our captain, Brian, was wonderful. He combined an informative narrative with lots of humor, and not the usual corny stuff you often hear on tour buses. We cruised past the beautiful Dartmouth waterfront

and the lovely sailboats in the harbor.

He told us a bit about Dartmouth Castle, the building of which was started in 1388. It was built to defend the harbor from privateers and the French.

It was built up over the next few centuries, including the addition of a huge chain strung from Dartmouth Castle across the river to Kingswear Castle. The chain could be raised to block ships from entering the harbor. Unfortunately, all these defenses proved insufficient during the English Civil War in 1646 when it fell to the Parliamentarians. In modern times it was used as a defense during WWII.

We turned around where the River Dart empties into the English Channel and sailed up river. On the opposite side of the river from Dartmouth is the village of Kingswear. The houses in this village are even more expensive than those in Dartmouth, averaging in the millions. There are said to be seventeen billionaires in England. Eight of them own property in Kingswear.

Brian pointed out Bayard's Cove Fort, built as the final defense of the city's harbor.

He said it never fired a shot in anger which was just as well because the cannons were known as "murder in pieces" because they could do as much damage to the people behind the cannons as those in front of it.

Next, Brian told us about the two car ferries that cross the River Dart. One is towed by a tugboat permanently attached to it.

The other one operates on wires strung across the harbor. There's no need to steer it and, in fact, no way to steer it, because it just crosses back and forth. Sounds like a good idea, but apparently a few years back, one of the wires broke on the predecessor to the current ferry, and the ferry began to drift. A quick thinking deckhand on board had the excellent idea to throw the anchor overboard. Quick thinking, but perhaps a bit too quick thinking, because he didn't check to see that the anchor was attached to the ferry. Oops. The ferry slowly drifted, wiping out a number of boats before it was brought under control. To this day, the anchor and chain lie at the bottom of the river.

Because of its design, the ferry has the nickname "the floating bridge" and if you have GPS, you may be sent to the bridge as part of your journey across the countryside. The only problem with this is that the "bridge" stops running at 11:00pm.

As we sailed upriver, Brian told us that Dartmouth is the home of the Britannia Royal Naval College whose Officer Cadets train on the river. Because the Officer Cadets tend to be very young, they call this part of the River "the nursery." We watched several of them on maneuvers. Brian said it was "the perfect opportunity for the ladies aboard the ferry to get your white hankies out and wave and shout "hello sailor," but that the gents should feel free to join in as well because the cadets would absolutely love it."

He pointed out that the vessel on the left cost one million pounds to build and is not steered by a traditional wheel, but by the equivalent of a computer mouse.

A bit further down the river is a new development called the Noss on Dart Marina which was once a very famous shipyard called Phillip and Sons. The older buildings were knocked down to make room for the more modern ones.

The first stage of development was to enlarge the marina to a 300 berth marina, which brings in a lot of revenue. In the second stage, shops and restaurants were added and the third stage is currently underway, the construction of a five-star hotel. It's the next stage that had all the locals abuzz. The developers announced that they were building "affordable housing" for locals only. The excitement over this announcement was short-lived when the definition of "affordable" turned out to be in excess of £750,000. That's approximately one million in US dollars.

Brian pointed out the boat of a rival ferry company and said, "Please don't wave, but any other hand gestures are perfectly acceptable. No, please do wave to them, but if you see their passengers wave back, it probably means that they are in distress and want to get off."

The boat turned around a bit further upriver near Dittisham where you can board the ferry to Greenway. The big pink building is the Ferryboat Inn, known locally as the FBI.

He told us that the River Dart is very clean, full of fish, and home to lots of wildlife including Atlantic grey seals. Sadly, we didn't see any seals. We did spot a drone, though.

In the 16th century, Sir Walter Raleigh used to dock his boat, the Roebuck, on the River Dart. He had a boathouse which still stands though the only part of the boathouse remaining from his days is the very bottom where you can see the three stone arches.

It is now owned by the Greenway estate, former summer home of a woman named Agatha Miller, better known as Agatha Christie. You can just see it peeking through the trees.

You can read more about it on an earlier blog post.

Brian pointed out the stone archways of the viaduct which is used by the Dartmouth Steam Railway Heritage Society.

This viaduct was designed for the Great Western Railway by one of the most brilliant British engineers of the 19th century, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He also built the railway station in Dartmouth for the GWR. Now, Brunel was clearly very intelligent, but he was also a bit overconfident. He didn't obtain permission to build a bridge over the River Dart, so the GWR line ended in Kingswear, making the station in Dartmouth one of the few that has never had, nor ever will have, a track or a train attached to it.

As Brian was telling us this story, I heard him sound 3 whistles. As a former cruise ship employee I know that that signals that a ship is going backwards, which is just what we started to do. The reason for that was that the Dartmouth Steam Train was headed for the archway and Brian wanted to get us in place to see it as it crossed the Greenway viaduct.

As we sailed back to the harbor we passed what was once a major shipyard.

This yard built around 400 ships for the war effort and also built several ferries still on the river. One of them is called the Dartmouth Castle. It's nickname is the Olympic Flame because it never seems to go out. Another is the paddle steamer, the Kingswear Castle, built in 1924. It was the last coal-fired, passenger-carrying paddle steamer that operated in Britain. When running, as it will be in a couple of weeks, it burns about a half ton of coal per day.

We headed back to the dock

and Brian advised us to either sit or hold on to something or someone (preferably someone you know) while he brought the boat in for its controlled crash maneuver. As we disembarked, we got a view of that railway station built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, which is now a restaurant called The Embankment.

It was a wonderful way to spend time in Dartmouth.