MOVING PICTURES
The Belstone Community Archive was established in 1998 when research for The Book of Belstone (2002) began. It now consists of around 20 box files of documents, memories and photos, and around 7000 digitised images.
And those box files have been raided for a special exhibition of Belstone and wider-Dartmoor photos at the Methodist Chapel in the centre of the village, mounted in conjunction with West Devon Methodist Circuit and Okehampton’s Museum of Dartmoor Life.
Around 50 images, mostly with the theme ‘people doing things in the past’ and covering the last 130 years, are included from the Belstone Archive. A similar number of images from the Dartmoor Trust’s extensive archive are also displayed, many with the theme ‘then and now’.
Here the Archive’s custodian, Chris Walpole, reveals some of his favourite photographs, providing a wonderful snapshot of village life from yesteryear…
1)
‘This line up of ‘The Belstone Tramps’ was their only appearance on stage, in a variety show on 1 December 1960. Cyril Moorlock (second from left) was the set designer for every Belstone Players production between 1956 and 1976; he also ran the village shop for 40 years from 1925. Peter Northcott (second from right) only appeared once more on stage, as a dead body in the 1986 Belstone Players production of Agatha Christie’s Murder at the Vicarage. William Ellis (extreme right) was an AA patrolman for 45 years, a familiar sight on local roads wearing his yellow cape and riding a motor-cycle with sidecar.’
2)
‘The Beating the Bounds perambulation takes place every seven years. This upending ceremony, literally to drum into youngsters’ heads where the boundary lies, took place at the boundary stone in Taw Marsh on 18 July 1951. Here teenager John Bullen is ‘bumped’ by Gordon Westaway and Stan Sheldrake and given a ‘beating’ by flagman and leader of the walk Frank Kelly. Standing extreme left with a camera is Ruth St Leger-Gordon, author of The Witchcraft and Folklore of Dartmoor (1965).'
3)
’Belstone youngsters and adults on Great Green in June 1930, with the rounded bulk of Cosdon in the background. They are carrying the Methodist banner ‘Wesleyan Sunday School Founded 1856’ and look to be in the middle of an outdoor service. The banner is still displayed in the Methodist Chapel where the current exhibition is taking place.’
4)
‘William Reddaway with (left to right) three of his children, Jack, May and Doris, outside Town Living Farm in the centre of Belstone, in the mid 1930s. William was a farmer and stonemason who continued the ‘Mid-Devon Granite Works’ business begun by his father. Jack became one of the main farmers in the parish and was Lord of the Manor from 1990 until his death in 2006. Doris worked in London as a maid for Sir William Ball (the King’s Remembrancer 1943-47).’
5)
‘This is me filming ‘The Circle of Doom’ at Nine Maidens stone circle in 1985. The film featured Niobe, a backpacker who becomes trapped inside the circle by a mysterious force-field which eventually kills her and turns her into another of the stones. A ‘lost masterpiece’, the only copy of this horror movie disappeared for ever when in transit to a film transfer company in Soho.’
6)
‘Tom Gratton in the early 1950s. He was born in the Okehampton Workhouse in 1869 and by the age of twelve was working at Perrymans Farm on Skaigh Lane. The farm was left to Tom and his wife Jemmetta and by April 1914 ten of their eleven children had been born there. He served on Okehampton Rural District Council for 45 years from 1907, walking down to meetings smartly dressed in a stiff white shirt with tie fixed to his collar. When ploughing with his horses he was often heard singing Abide With Me.’
7)
‘The Belstone Home Guard in 1941, in front of their hut on Great Green. Two men would be on duty, two others sleeping in the hut, two hours on, two hours off. One of their main tasks was to patrol the strategic site of Fatherford railway viaduct. Incidents included losing a bayonet on the green, getting lost on manoeuvres between Cullever Steps and Taw Marsh, a grenade that exploded by accident on top of a wall at Watchet, and mistaking black bullocks in the dark for invading Germans.’
8)
’This 60 foot diameter wheel was the largest waterwheel ever built on mainland Britain. Long gone, its retaining wall can still be seen close to the lane between Belstone and Sticklepath. Installed in 1878, the wheel was powered by water from two leats and a stream and turned at up to five revolutions per minute. It operated a series of flat iron rods that stretched across the fields to de-water Greenhill Copper Mine 600 metres away. To get an idea of its size, follow the arrow to spot the man, horse and cart.’
The exhibition runs until the end of October and is open every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, 2-5pm. Entry is free.