Next FREE ZOOM from The Starcross History Society

 

Wednesday, March 17th, 2021

 19.30 to 21.00

Jon Nichol

Now & Then: Covid19 & Spanish Flu

Please email heirnet@gmail.com to enable us to send you the link to this online ZOOM meeting

Dartmoor Mardon Down FREE ZOOM

Harberton & Harbertonford History Society Zoom talk by Andy Crabb, Dartmoor Archeologist ‘From The Neolithic to Normandy: A Deep History of Mardon Down’ Tuesday 19th January at 7.30pm, via Zoom Dear Jill, Firstly, a warm welcome to 2021 - and indeed we are in much need of warmth!   I am writing  with details of the first talk of the year when we will welcome back, Andy Crabb, Dartmoor Archaeologist, who will give an online talk via Zoom on Tuesday 19th January at 7.30pm, via Zoom.:  The title of the talk is : ‘From The Neolithic to Normandy: A Deep History of Mardon Down’   Mardon Down, near Moretonhampstead, hosts an interesting collection of ancient monuments, including the largest stone circle on Dartmoor and the ‘Giant’s Grave’. Andy’s new talk will cover recent surveys of Neolithic, Bronze Age, Medieval and WWII structures. He’ll also include discoveries at the nearby Wooston Castle Iron-Age hillfort." If you are interested in joining this free Zoom meeting please email us by clicking on the link below.   Register interest in Andy's talk As mentioned in our last email, we are asking you to consider making a small donation to the cost of the talk - which amounts to approximately £70 each time. The vast majority of people who attended our first Zoom talk said that they were happy to contribute. Please click on the link below to give a voluntary contribution. If you are not certain that you will attend, the opportunity to donate will be repeated when we send out the meeting joining instructions next week. Thank you very much in advance .   Donate towards the cost of the talk Andy Crabb works with Historic England and Dartmoor National Park Authority. Those who have been on our Dartmoor summer picnics will have enjoyed his archaeological walks. He has been working as an archaeologist for over 20 years and mainly works within the Dartmoor National park, but his role with Historic England also covers West Devon, Mid Devon and Exeter. In his Dartmoor work he covers all aspects of the park's rich historic environment from Neolithic enclosures to second world war airfields - 20,000+ known sites. For Historic England he works as part of the regional ‘heritage at risk’ team. This is a group tasked with trying to reduce the numerous threats faced by the region’s scheduled monuments, listed buildings and registered parklands. In addition we have arranged two further online  talks this year: Tuesday March 2nd - 7.30pm - Colin Vosper: The Old Saltway - From  Coombe Cellars to Totnes    Tuesday October 5th - 7.30pm - Dr Todd Gray: Uncle Tom Cobley and Widdicombe Fair and Harberton   We are planning talks for May and November and will let you have the details of all these meetings as soon as these have been confirmed. We very much hope you will join us for this, our second online talk, and look forward to seeing you on the 19th January. With All Good Wishes, Jill   Jill Powell Secretary  Harberton and Harbertonford History Society    Visit our website Harberton and Harbertonford History Society,  Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

Redesigning Peacock event

Because we can't meet face-to-face with Joe Hancock from Burn the Curtain 

we are unable to plan exactly how we could weave the history of our Victorian polymath with  reenactment, empathetic problem solving and other dramatic activities. Joe Hancock is keen for people to be involved rather than to just be an audience.

 Our ZOOM presentation is now postponed indefinitely. We may ask Burn the Curtain  to propose some of their theatrical ways for our community to celebrate Captain George Peacock. That would be a separate event and video footage of it would be part of our ZOOM.

Many thanks to Judith Greenhough, for her  extensive research about Captain Peacock,  which will add to the  Starcross History Society's ZOOM presentation.

The internet continues to reveal gems, such as this Pin of a diagram of Captain Peacock's Refuge Buoy, from the Bibliotheca Caminos. The Liverpool Maritime Museum has a model of his apparatus to desalinate seawater so that sailors could have a reliable supply of freshwater. HERE'S the link to the information from The Liverpool Maritime Museum, and here's a picture, courtesy of 

http://reptonix.awardspace.co.uk/photos/2012-02-26.htm

The Starcross Mermaid; three fishy tails

We have three reports of different reliability on local mermaids. The first is from August 1812. A group was on a sailing trip a mile off Exmouth when it heard a wild, tinkling harpsichord melody. The trippers then spotted  a human-like sea creature, almost six feet long, with a fish tail, ‘diving and twisting in the water’. Excitedly, they threw boiled fish into the sea -  the creature drew nearer and seemed to be cavorting playfully near the vessel. After three quick plunges, ‘she’ swam rapidly away and was lost to sight. A mermaid!, with a long, oval face, seal-like, but more agreeable. Hair seemed to crown her upper and back head. Not beautiful, she was more like an animal, whose upper arms were covered with a soft fawn or pinkish down. Her two arms ended in four webbed fingers on each hand. The waist tapered gradually to form a tail apparently covered with shiny scales, while on her back was something like feathers. 

The second report was about 100 years later. A group of eight fisherman caught a similar mermaid off Topsham bar. The group used sticks brutally to knock it down after it leapt out of the fishing net and tried to ‘run away with great swiftness’. The four foot long mermaid had legs, webbed feet, human eyes, a mouth, and a salmon-like tail.  Dying ‘it groan’d like a human creature’. The mermaid subsequently went on public display in Topsham and then London.

The anonymous contemporary third tale reached us recently and triggered off Monica Lang’s memories of the first two accounts in The Exmouth Journal. 

It was a cold and windy night; a gale was blowing up the Exe.  The ghostly moon peeped wanly through the scudding cloud.  On the end of the Starcross pier sat a sad, love-lorn, lonely and hunched figure, playing a lament on his harmonica. The young man looked up, startled, as he fleetingly saw a beautiful young woman's head emerge from the waves, her long blond tresses streaked with seaweed and kelp. The young man's heart pounded frantically, it was love at first sight, who was this gorgeous phantom, as she slipped below the waves without apparently so much as a glance in his direction.  Had she noticed him? Was it an hallucination? Perhaps one glass too many in The Galleon on his way to Starcross pier....’

Are there any other stories of the River Exe mermaid? Our Loch Ness Monster!

If so, please send to

starcross.history@gmail.com

 

Jon Nichol