We are delighted that our Chelston Heritage Trail has been made into an audio podcast by our friends at Sound Communities! Now you can just download the pod to your phone, pop in your headphones and listen as you follow the trail around Chelston’s heritage sites. Enjoy!
Do you know where the Bigge Fountain is located in Chelston? Where the home of Chelston’s first fire station was? Or who built Cockington primary school in 1892?
Taleblazers have been busy with our Chelston Heritage Map project, for which we received funding for from the Torbay Small Grants Lottery Fund and the Localgiving – Magic Little Grants. We had been researching places in Chelston to feature on our map and engaged the community to have their say on which historical places of Chelston to include. We started to draw multiple versions of the map and write up the text to go with it and we are pleased to say that we are nearly there. However, with the Covid-19 pandemic we had to delay the launch and we hope to have our launch day in the late summer or early autumn. The Chelston Heritage Map day would be a chance for the community to walk around Chelston on a free guided tour where we will share the history and story about the selected places. If you are interested in this guided walk, please email us at; rich@taleblazers.org.uk
Once we have a launch day, we will share this information with you all and in order for us to keep the numbers suitable you will be able to book onto the free event via Eventbrite. We aim to run 3 guided walks on the launch day for up to 12 individuals per walk. An additional of 3 free walks will be added on Eventbrite in the autumn in case you missed the walks on our launch day.
The pictures below are from some of the places we have picked for the Chelston Heritage Map, can you spot where they are in Chelston?
Finally, we hope you are enjoying the last bit of summer sunshine and that you will come along to our launch day!
#Taleblazers #Devon #Torbay #Torquay #Chelston #Outdoor #Nature #Map #ChelstonHeritageMap #TorbayCouncil #TorbaySmallGrantsLotteryFund #Localgiving #MagicLittleGrant
In a previous blog post, we introduced you to our National Plant Monitoring Scheme square at Cornwood, near Ivybridge. Last month, we returned to our square and completed our first survey of the year.
On our previous visit, we had identified the plots we were going to use, so now it was a case of finding them again, laying out a survey square and recording what plant species were there. Our first square was high up in the NE corner of the square, along the edge of a earthwork dug into the ground. The square was heavily grazed, and we only found four species there: gorse, wavy hair-grass, tormentil, and heath bedstraw. All of these species are indicators for heathland, but key species such as bilberry and heathers were completely absent, presumably munched away by the local sheep. This was the case across the site, and we found hardly any heather even when walking between our plots.
The second plot was more fun. This was a wet area (or ‘flush’) that we had identified on our recce, an area of wet ground high on the hill that fed a small stream cutting across the site. The area was dominated by more wavy hair-grass, soft rush and sphagnum, but the real find was a plant I knew to be carnivorous but couldn’t recall the name of. Fortunately Kev had an app that stepped in and took the word sundew off the tip of my tongue:
After this excitement, we had two more plot to visit and recorded more species that were positive indicators for both acid grassland and dry heath: heath bedstraw, tormentil, wavy hair-grass and a bit of bilberry on the higher plot. We recorded both as acid grassland, because the hair-grass dominated and there was no heather at all, and the presence of a couple of sorrel species confirmed this classification:
One of our favourite finds emerged right at the end though, when our eyes were drawn to a small succulent plant with beautiful pinkish-white star-shaped flowers. This was English stonecrop sedum anglicum, and we found a tiny little patch of it growing among the moss in the crevice of a boulder. It was once of those plants that once you had spotted it your eye was in, and we found a lovely patch of it on a bare sunny rock on the walk back to the car. It looked like a starry map of constellations laid out on the ground, a stunning and beautiful sight that we’d have probably walked past if it weren’t for the NPMS.
It was a really good day out and, even though we only found a dozen or so species, we learnt quite a lot just through having to look closely and identify plants. We signed up for the NPMS with a little bit of trepidation because we’re both interested amateurs who have never really studied botany, but we had quite a lot of fun and it felt great to be contributing to this important national monitoring project. We’re really pleased to be involved and can’t wait to go back to our site later in the year.
If you want to know more about the NPMS, visit the National Plant Monitoring Scheme website where you can learn about survey methods and even sign up for your own square!
What a beautiful weekend it has been and we were celebrating Trails Day which took place on Saturday the 5th.
What is Trails Day you may wonder? Well, in 1968 American president Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Trails Act into law which established a network of trails for people to use. Trails Day celebrates the explored and the unexplored by getting out into nature to discover and to rediscover. This could be by walking, hiking, cycling or on a horse back. For example, we have the South West Coast Path which one could follow to discover hidden gems and beautiful views.
Taleblazers is a CIC which focus children and young people as well as the communities of Dartmoor and south Devon, we are passionate about storytelling and the outdoors. In April, we were awarded our first grant from the Torbay Small Grants Lottery Fund for our project the Chelston Heritage Map. Our own trail which you could walk. We have been researching places in Chelston to feature on the map, we have drawn multiple versions and we have engaged the community of Chelston to have their say on which historical places of Chelston to include. We are soon to launch this project so stay tuned!
#Trailsday #Taleblazers #Torbay #SouthWest #Devon #Outdoor #Nature #TorbayCouncil #TorbaySmallGrantsLotteryFund
Last week, I attended a really good Mountain Training seminar with Sarah from the National Plant Monitoring Scheme (NPMS). The NPMS is a national volunteer plant monitoring scheme designed and developed by four partner organisations: Plantlife, BSSI, UKCEH and JNCC. It is a habitat-based scientific survey that collects data about plant populations all over the country and relies on volunteers to go out twice a year to collect data. A randomised set of 1km squares of land are assigned to volunteers who go out twice a year and report back on what they find. It is the best wild plant database we have and it is something that we are very keen to contribute to.
So we signed up, chose a square and were sent through a whole load of information: wildflower ID guides, species lists and guidance about what to do and how. We have chosen square SX6061, which is on the edge of Dartmoor a few kilometres north of Cornwood.
Our plot is divided into 25 plots as above, and our first task was to identify which plots would be most representative of the habitats in the square. At least three of our five plots should be plots from the grid above, and we could also do two plots along linear features and/or a wet area if there is one in our square. Ideally we should try to include one of each habitat type, too. So this morning we visited the site to have a good look around and decide on a surveying plan.
We quickly ruled out all of the southernmost plots marked as ‘other habitat’, as these were all on farmland, in fields used for livestock. It also became apparent that the wooded areas, though photogenic, were not suitable either. They were surrounded by a high wall topped with a fence, and even had access looked likely it appeared that inside was overgrown and recently replanted. So it looked like we were focussing on the lowland grassland and heath!
The OS map marked a watercourse passing through plot 19 that looked like a good target for a linear plot, so we decided to check out that area first. However, the watercourse was dry. This is not uncommon on OS maps, especially if the watercourse is seasonal. However, it was drier than expected, and the reason became apparent as we followed it up the hill. Some time ago, a bank had been built across the top to divert the water to the south-west via a rough leat and we arrived at the top to find quite a nice ‘flush’ where water comes to the surface to form a wet area. This was a really good find so became our first plot, and we decided that further down the leat we would plan our linear plot.
Now it was just a case of walking the rest of the site and deciding which three plots would be most representative. The eastern side is more grassy and the more you go to the north and west the rockier and more heathy it gets. We haven’t decided for definite yet, but we will probably do plot 24 to capture the grassland and 16 for the heath. We didn’t visit the locality of plot 6 but the satellite imagery seems to suggest that it is in an area that is being colonised by trees, so this will most likely be the third.
With our plans in the bag, we headed for the top of nearby Penn Beacon where there are some ancient cairns, a trig point and amazing views down to the china clay works and Plymouth beyond.
We’ll be back to the site in a few weeks time to start our surveys – we’ll post another update then!
We are absolutely delighted to announce that we have been given some funding from the Torbay Small Grants Lottery Fund to allow us to start work on our planned Chelston Heritage Map!
There have been people living in Chelston for a very long time – stone axes, flint scrapers and spear heads have all been found in the area which suggests may have been people passing through here up to six thousand years ago. In the Medieval period it was part of the manor of Cockington and the name Chilestone first appeared in the 13th century. The Cary family owned Chelston up until 1654, when it passed to the Mallocks. Amazingly, the Chelston Manor Hotel was originally a dower house for Cockington manor and it may even have been lived in by some of the Carys. Nearby Chelston Cottage is also very old and parts of it date from the 16th century.
Chelston, though, broadly remained a quiet, rural area. It was in the Victorian period, mainly in a burst of activity around 1880-1900, that most of the Chelston we know was built. Some large villas had already been built and all the things a young community needs were added – houses, churches, schools, shops, hotels, parks. The grandest of these landmarks are now listed buildings and the parks have avoided development. Chelston remains a green, friendly and pleasant place to live today.
Our heritage map will celebrate this by picking out some of the key locations from Chelston’s history and joining them together into a walking route. This will be hand-drawn by the Taleblazers team in a heritage style and will have details about each landmark on the reverse. We will then distribute our map free of charge to local schools, shops, pubs and cafes for residents to take themselves on a historic walk of the area in their own time. We hope to have a launch event on Trails Day, Saturday 5th June, when we will be offering guided walks and we will also reach out to local residents who may need support in getting around the route. We hope the walking route will encourage people to get outside and reconnect with one another post-covid, increase a positive connection between residents and their urban landscape and provide opportunities to reduce isolation and improve mental health.
We are broadly basing the geographical area of Chelston on the Torbay Council Ward Map of Cockington and Chelston, taking Chelston’s western boundary as the ridge following Seaway Lane and its continuation. To the east our map will go as far as the physical boundary of Avenue Road. To the north we will, for practical reasons, not go further north than the Haywain pub. Locations we have already identified are:
We don’t want to miss anywhere, so if there is anywhere that you think we should include please let us know!
Though this is a non-commercial activity, we are still looking for support from local businesses to help with production and printing costs and to support the outreach elements of the project. If you think you might be able to help, please get in touch!