South Devon & West Dorset

The Queen of Westcountry Ports

Dartmouth could be described as the Queen of Westcountry ports. Maybe it's something to do with that enormous Naval College which overlooks the town with an air of imperial majesty. Or perhaps it's something to do with the classy shops that line Dartmouth's picturesque streets. Or it could be some subliminal belief that any village called Kingswear, which lies opposite the river, should have its queen.

Then there is the River Dart itself that flow serenely between the twin castles at its mouth. Up stream the woods are like ermine and the water is deep azure.

But Dartmouth was once a squalid little place on the banks of a few muddy creeks. Probably not as squalid as some Westcountry ports, but nevertheless devoid of the present cut of its jib.

Much of the waterside has been reclaimed from the estuary over the past 500 years - once upon a time many of those smart streets were nothing more than mud-lined creeks.

At Dartmouth Museum you can exhibits that prove the point. The maps of yesteryear show that the town was once an altogether different shape. Reclamation on a large scale started in 1585 when The Butterwalk and its accompanying street were not even a twinkle in ye olde architect's eye. Before the sixteenth century this area was the home of reed buntings and ooze.

Once terra firma was firmly in place the rich merchants of the town started building. The Butterwalk went up between 1635-40 at the behest of Mark Hawkins, a merchant in the Newfoundland trade.

You only have to spend a couple of minutes wandering around waterside Dartmouth to realise that it was a place of great wealth. The merchants became rich thanks to the port's trade and their houses still handsomely dominate the centre of the town.

The museum curator once told me: "The people of Dartmouth did to their town what the Dutch did to Holland. Bit by bit they extended the place by filling in creeks and marshes, and then they built on what they had taken from the river."

An extensive example of reclamation is at Coronation Park, just under the Britannia Royal Navy College and adjacent to the Upper Ferry. Where tulips now grow, boat-builders once plied their trade in a jumble of sheds cluttered around tidal creeks.

Dartmouth sent a dozen ships to defeat the Spanish Armada. Later the Pilgrim Fathers called in for repairs on their ships and, later still, townsman Thomas Newcomen invented the atmospheric pressure steam engine.

Dartmouth Museum, by-the-way, is to be found above the elegantly cloistered Butter Walk. A flight of stairs takes you into a splendid suite of rooms which were once part of a Mark Hawkins' apartment.

With their oak panelling and ornate ceilings the rooms seem fit for a king - and were - Charles II once stayed here. The museum also boasts a fantastic collection of model sailing ships that includes a sleek Dartmouth built Fruit Schooner called Queen Charlotte.

Nowadays no freight comes in and out of the port of Dartmouth, but thousands of pleasure yachts and cruisers do. More than 7,000 every year. Dartmouth plays host to one of Britain's largest crab fleets with around 20 professional boats landing some £5.3 millions-worth of the delicious crustaceans every year.

Altogether more than 100 people are employed in the town's fishing industry - if you count Kingswear as well, which is a slightly dodgy thing to do because the people over there apparently don't take kindly to being lumped together with Dartmouth.

The port also welcomes numerous ship visits throughout the year including naval vessels from different countries and the cruise liners which are part of an exciting new development as far as South Devon's tourism industry is concerned.

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