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North Bovey
North Bovey is a village and civil parish situated on the south-eastern side of Dartmoor National Park, Devon, England, about 11 miles WSW of the city of Exeter and 1.5 miles SSW of Moretonhampstead. The village lies above the eastern bank of the River Bovey from which it takes its name. In 2001 the population of the parish was 274, compared to 418 in 1901 and 519 in 1801. The parish church is built of granite and is dedicated to St. John the Baptist. It dates from the 14th century, and was restored early in the 20th century by Sir Charles Nicholson. It is one of the several churches around Dartmoor that has a representation of the tinners rabbits on one of its roof bosses. On the village green is an ancient stone cross which was thrown down during the Civil War and spent some time afterwards as a bridge over a local stream. In 1829 it was retrieved and installed into a socket-stone which had remained in situ on the village green, though it is not considered likely ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Bovey, Stone Cross - Geograph
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is related to the Old High German ''nord'', both descending from the Proto-Indo-European unit *''ner-'', meaning "left; below" as north is to left when facing the rising sun. Similarly, the other cardinal directions are also related to the sun's position. The Latin word ''borealis'' comes from the Greek '' boreas'' "north wind, north", which, according to Ovid, was personified as the wind-god Boreas, the father of Calais and Zetes. ''Septentrionalis'' is from ''septentriones'', "the seven plow oxen", a name of ''Ursa Major''. The Greek ἀρκτικός (''arktikós'') is named for the same constellation, and is the source of the English word ''Arctic''. Other languages have other derivations. For example, in Lezgian, ''kefer'' can mean b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bronze Age Britain
Bronze Age Britain is an era of British history that spanned from until . Lasting for approximately 1,700 years, it was preceded by the era of Neolithic Britain and was in turn followed by the period of Iron Age Britain. Being categorised as the Bronze Age, it was marked by the use of copper and then bronze by the prehistoric Britons, who used such metals to fashion tools. Great Britain in the Bronze Age also saw the widespread adoption of agriculture. During the British Bronze Age, large megalithic monuments similar to those from the Late Neolithic continued to be constructed or modified, including such sites as Avebury, Stonehenge, Silbury Hill and Must Farm. That has been described as a time "when elaborate ceremonial practices emerged among some communities of subsistence agriculturalists of western Europe". History Early Bronze Age (EBA), c. 2500–1500 BC There is no clear consensus on the date for the beginning of the Bronze Age in Great Britain and Ireland. Some sou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Henry Smith (1825–1891)
William Henry Smith, FRS (24 June 1825 – 6 October 1891) was an English bookseller and newsagent of the family firm W H Smith, who expanded the firm and introduced the practice of selling books and newspapers at railway stations. He was elected a Member of Parliament in 1868 and rose to the position of First Lord of the Admiralty less than ten years thereafter. Because of his lack of naval experience, he was perceived as a model for the character Sir Joseph Porter in ''H.M.S. Pinafore''. In the mid-1880s, he was twice Secretary of State for War, and later First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Commons, among other posts. Background and business career The son of William Henry Smith (1792–1865), Smith was born in London. He was educated at Tavistock Grammar School before joining his father's newsagent and book business in 1846, at which time the firm became W H Smith & Son. Both men took advantage of the railway boom by opening news-stands on railway stati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederick Smith, 2nd Viscount Hambleden
William Frederick Danvers Smith, 2nd Viscount Hambleden DL (12 August 1868 – 16 June 1928), known as Frederick Smith, was an English hereditary peer, businessman and politician. He studied at Eton, and New College, Oxford Life and career Smith was involved in the management of the family business, W H Smith, which was founded by his grandfather, William Henry Smith. He inherited sole control of the business from his father in 1891 and passed it on to his son. In 1891, he also succeeded his father William Henry Smith as Member of Parliament for the Strand constituency, holding the seat until January 1910. His rapid succession to the seat his father held in Parliament may have played a role in his being targeted for blackmail by the notorious poisoner Dr Thomas Neill Cream, who (writing under an assumed name) claimed to have proof that Smith had poisoned a prostitute. This was one of three known attempts at blackmail that may have been the real motive for Cream's stri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Detmar Blow
Detmar Jellings Blow (24 November 1867 – 7 February 1939) was a British architect of the early 20th century, who designed principally in the arts and crafts style. His clients belonged chiefly to the British aristocracy, and later he became estates manager to the Duke of Westminster. The fiction that he was a descendant of the English restoration composer John Blow was started in 1910 by Detmar Blow's wife Winifred, a member of the aristocratic Tollemache family, as a means of obtaining a licence from St Paul's Cathedral for the marriage of herself and Detmar. Life and career Son of Jellings Blow, of Hilles, Stroud, Gloucestershire, Blow was one of the last disciples of John Ruskin, whom as a young man he had accompanied on his last journey abroad. Detmar was friends with the Wyndham family, who at their country house Clouds in Wiltshire created a salon frequented by many of the leading intellectual and artistic figures of the day, known as The Souls, who welcomed Blow into ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bovey Castle
Bovey Castle is a large early 20th-century mansion on the edge of Dartmoor National Park, near Moretonhampstead, Devon, England. It is a Grade II* listed building and is now a hotel with 59 individually designed bedrooms in the hotel and 22 three-storey country lodges nearby. History The house was built in 1907 to designs by Detmar Blow, for Frederick Smith (the son and heir of the Conservative politician and stationery magnate William Henry Smith). By 1930 it had become a hotel operated by the Great Western Railway, known as the Manor House Hotel. In 1948 it was taken over by the British Transport Commission. Expanded under new ownership in the 1990s, the castle was purchased and refurbished by the entrepreneur Peter de Savary in 2003 and renamed 'Bovey Castle'. In 2006 de Savary sold Bovey Castle to Hilwood Resorts. In 2014 it was sold to The Rigby Group plc as part of their Eden Hotel Collection. Architecture The main building was built in 1907 in Jacobean style ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dartmoor Longhouse
The Dartmoor longhouse is a type of traditional stone-built home, typically found on the high ground of Dartmoor, in Devon, England and belonging to a wider tradition of combining human residences with those of livestock (cattle or sheep) under a single roof specific to western Britain; Wales, Cornwall and Devon, where they are more usually referred to simply as longhouses and in general housebarns. History The earliest are thought to have been built in the 13th century, and they continued to be constructed throughout the mediaeval period and into the Early Modern, using local granite or other stone. One particular longhouse near Carreg Cennen Castle in Wales is dated to the 11th century. Many longhouses are still inhabited today (although adapted over the centuries), while others have been converted into farm buildings. Forms of longhouses identical to those on Dartmoor are found in Cornwall, particularly on Bodmin Moor and in Wales where they are commonly called ''tyddyn'' me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Domesday Book
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by the Latin name ''Liber de Wintonia'', meaning "Book of Winchester", where it was originally kept in the royal treasury. The '' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' states that in 1085 the king sent his agents to survey every shire in England, to list his holdings and dues owed to him. Written in Medieval Latin, it was highly abbreviated and included some vernacular native terms without Latin equivalents. The survey's main purpose was to record the annual value of every piece of landed property to its lord, and the resources in land, manpower, and livestock from which the value derived. The name "Domesday Book" came into use in the 12th century. Richard FitzNeal wrote in the ''Dialogus de Scaccario'' ( 1179) that the book ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birch Tor And Vitifer Mine
Birch Tor and Vitifer mine was a tin mine on Dartmoor, Devon, England. Located in the valley of the Redwater Brook, to the east of the B3212 Moretonhampstead to Princetown road, below the Warren House Inn, the mine was worked between the mid–18th century and 1925. History In medieval times, or even before, the area later occupied by this mine was at the centre of the most extensive surface mining operations on Dartmoor, and today it is still scarred by the waste heaps left by stream working and numerous gullies of open cast mining.Greeves 2001, pp.21–24 Strictly speaking, Birch Tor mine on the eastern side of the Redwater Brook valley and Vitifer mine on the west were separate mines, but for most of their working lives they were operated under the same management, so they are usually considered together. The first documentary reference to "Vitifer Mine" was in 1750, and to "Burch Tor Bounds" in 1757. By the 1780s Vitifer was being operated by the Dartmoor Mining and Smeltin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Two Bridges, Devon
Two Bridges is an isolated location on the river West Dart in the heart of Dartmoor National Park in Devon, England. It is situated around north east of Princetown at the intersection of the two roads that cross Dartmoor: one is the old turnpike road which was built across Dartmoor in the late 18th century (now known as the B3212); the other is the B3357. A map dated 1765 suggests the origin of the name, for in those days the road crossed both the West Dart and the River Cowsic, just upstream from the point where they meet, and required two separate bridges. By 1891, these had disappeared and there was just a single bridge, further downstream, over the West Dart. Today, however, there are again two bridges on the site, because a more modern structure has been added alongside its earlier predecessor. Visitors often mistakenly assume that these are the same two bridges that gave the name to the site. In the 18th century, Two Bridges was best known for its potato market. Some smal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dartmoor Crosses
The Dartmoor crosses are a series of stone crosses found in Dartmoor National Park in the centre of Devon, England. Many of them are old navigational aids, needed because of the remoteness of the moorland and its typically bad weather. Some mark medieval routes between abbeys. Other crosses were erected as memorials, for prayer, as town or market crosses, in churchyards, and as boundary markers.Harrison 2001, pp. 27–34 The crosses were erected over a long period of time, some as recently as 100 years ago, the earliest probably almost 1,000 years ago. In 2005, the Dartmoor National Park Authority had an ongoing project to microchip the most vulnerable of its granite artifacts, including crosses, to deter theft and aid the recovery of any that might be stolen. Legend There is a legend attached to the origin of the original crosses. The story says that there were four monks who did not want to follow their abbot's rules on austere living. Once the abbot went to Italy, the four ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grimspound
Grimspound is a late Bronze Age settlement, situated on Dartmoor in Devon, England. It consists of a set of 24 hut circles surrounded by a low stone wall. The name was first recorded by the Reverend Richard Polwhele in 1797; it was probably derived from the Anglo-Saxon god of war, Grim (more commonly known as Woden, or Odin). In 1893 an archaeological dig was carried out by the Dartmoor Exploration Committee, which recorded many details of Grimspound as well as, controversially, making a reconstruction of the site. The site was designate as a scheduled monument in 1928. History The site was first settled in about 1300 BC. The 24 hut circles are surrounded by a massive granite perimeter wall, which may have stood at 1.7 metres in places. The roundhouses, with an average diameter of 3.4 metres, were each built of a double ring of granite slabs with a rubble infill, a technique still used in dry-stone walling. Hut 3 has a surviving porchway, with the two jamb stones still up ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
