Dave
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Post by Dave on Aug 18, 2009 16:08:13 GMT
After calling on the customer I wanted to see this morning at 7.30 am in Okehampton, I decided I did not need to go to Holsworthy or Stibbs Cross, I did want to call on three companies in Bideford and as I love the road from Okehampton to Bideford that goes through Great Torrington, I headed that way. I love the road for its dips and sharp corners, just makes driving that bit more fun. I also knew that just on the other side of Torrington was a small parking area with a public loo; if I had gone to Holsworthy I would have used the one opposite the main church there. As I drove into this parking area I noticed a large sign by the entrance and knew it was to do with the Torrington Cavaliers. So who are the Cavaliers I hear you ask? They are a long established fundraising group who donate any monies raised to local charities. They take part in many local events, but their main events are always giant themed Bonfires. The last event staged in August 2005 was a half size replica of Nelson's flagship HMS Victory .It was built over 2 years as part of the 200th anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar. The Cavaliers were born in 1970. Plymouth hosted a county wide carnival inviting entries from all the towns in Devon. A group of (then) young men dressed themselves in the uniforms of Cavaliers and entered a float depicting the old parish church which, in 1646, had been accidentally blown up by the Roundheads whilst 300 Cavalier prisoners were locked inside. (The Church was "rebuilt" in 1996 as the theme for a giant bonfire). Subsequent to the visit to Plymouth the group decided to continue in being. Led by the late Larry Alexander (Lardo) their mission was to put on events "the like of which Torrington had never seen before". With their bonfires the Cavaliers have achieved national, and international recognition as builders of sophisticated structures, following as near as possible the design of the original. Each bonfire has been declared "better than the last one" although those that remember for instance the 1973 fire of the German battleship Bismark might disagree. The aim of all the bonfires is to raise money for local good causes. In recent times the 1996 event raised well over £20000, most of which went to North Devon Cancer Care, and in 2000 over £40000 was raised, the main beneficiary this time was the Devon Air Ambulance who received a cheque for £20000 being the largest single donation ever received. I parked the van and looked down a cross the open field that is so popular with local dog walkers( I even stopped to talk with one of them)and there I saw the start of their latest bonfire, I did get to see the finished one back in 2005 before it went up So off I went on walkabouts and took a few picture with my camera phone. I did feel a daft fool when I put them on my PC and a had a good look at them, you see I only noticed the date the 28th August and I thought to myself all day, that they will never get it built and finished in ten days. Yes it is going up in flames on the 28th August, only in 2010. On this day a replica of the Great Torrington Castle will be burnt to the ground to celebrate the Cavaliers' 40th anniversary.The group will spend the next 18 months building the replica.The original Great Torrington Castle was built in 1150, with the structure being demolished 200 years later after what is thought to have been a planning row. The replica will be built based upon a woodcutting of the castle found by a local farmer at the back of a barn.The castle will include a working drawbridge, portcullis, an open courtyard, ramparts, an armour room, stables, a banquet hall and possibly even a moat.There will be medieval-style entertainment before the bonfire begins on August Bank Holiday 2010. A planning application was submitted last year and has just been given approval by Torridge District Council.Documents submitted to the council say that the structure will accurately reflect the design of a 14th century medieval castle.Plans show that the front towers will be 13 metres (39 foot) high and the rear towers will be 15 metres (45 foot) high.The castle will be completely constructed from timber but the castle walls will be painted to look like stonework As long as nothing changes to much in my life over the next year, I hope to update this thread with pictures as the castle takes shape and really hope to get one when its completely finished. The sign on the main raod  The start of the castle    Sign on castle fence  The last event staged in August 2005 a half size replica of Nelson's flagship HMS Victory, not yet finished in this picture   |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2009 17:22:55 GMT
Best thing to come out of Torrington since Kevin Hill?
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Aug 18, 2009 21:25:55 GMT
Best thing to come out of Torrington since Kevin Hill? I think he came out afterward ;D I know some will think they must be mad to spend all that time building these things, only to set them on fire, but the money they raise is fantastic. I just love people who put in so much effort into things like this, its why I think the people of Bridgwater are also unbelievable. The things I have learned from my customers there, about all the work they put into their carnival clubs and all that goes on during the year, I just admire them and wish we had a few more fans with their dedication. |
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Dec 11, 2009 20:22:14 GMT
UPDATE Carol works a two week shift pattern so one Friday she works and the other she has off, today was the day of Friday and I was glad as it means she does the big shop in the morning and her dad picks her up and brings the shopping home. On the other Friday when she works, it’s a rush for me all day to get finished and pick her up from the supermarket. Some Fridays I have to phone her when she is leaving work and tell her to take her time at the supermarket as I will be a bit late. Today would have been one of those late ones as I had to go to a village called Bow, a place I have not been to for over a year. I had always called on a company called Shiptons in North Tawton (near Okehampton) it was a private building supply company. Two years a go the owner sold the site for housing and moved everything into his skip hire premises in Bow, but one year later he shut the building supply part down and just ran the skip hire business. So he no longer took in power tools for repair, but he had some Dewalt tools of his own he wanted repairing. I then called into Okehampton to call on one company and once I was ready to get on my way again I decided I had no real need to go to Holsworthy, so I thought I would check out the progress of the great bonfire. I did want to call at Stibb Cross and the way I would normally go would be to head for Holsworthy and go through Halwill Junction, then through the Cockworthy Forrest. But instead of keeping on the road to Holsworthy I would turn off and head for Sherbear as that road ends up at the cross roads that Stibb Cross must get its name from. But as I wanted to see the bonfire site I headed for Torrington as the site is just on the other side of the town, I knew right opposite the site was a road called Limer’s Hill would take me to Stibb Cross. The first village I came to was Folly Gate, it has the customary fenced off and derelict garage and petrol station that you now see in so many towns and villages. Then on to Hatherliegh and finally Torrington. Well maybe it’s just because of all the rain we have had lately but hardly any work has been done on the castle, I still walked down to it and took a few pictures, but as you will see for yourself, it was a bit of a waste of time. So back in the van I drove down Limer’s Hill, it’s not that long and at the bottom of the hill is a pace called Taddiport. It’s what you see on your right as you drive down the hill that really catches your eye. It’s large and now in great decay, it’s the old Torrington Dairy A dairy has been at the site since 1874, when Robert Sandford founded a milking parlour. Over the years it grew and grew until the original buildings were not adequate for the scale of the operation. They were subsequently demolished, and in their place was built an enormous and lavish art deco factory. Glasgow-based Robert Wiseman bought the dairy, which includes the Definitely Devon brand, for £800,000 in March 2006; just six months later it closed it down and it has been decaying since then. The site is on the bank of the river, not sure the name of the river but its mouth is at Appledore in North Devon, but the next village I drove through before I got to Stibb Cross, found me wondering about something, maybe Barton or someone may have an answer for me. The village is called Langtree it only has one small church and that is a Methodist one, nothing strange in that you may say, but so many of the very small villages around this part of Devon only have a Methodist church. So were some settlements set up many years ago based on religion? So two pictures of the bonfire site and a few of the old milk factory.        |
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rjdgull
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Post by rjdgull on Dec 11, 2009 23:34:45 GMT
Dave, The family and I actually spent a week in a holiday cottage just outside Great Torrington a couple of years ago. Are the toilets and car park just up from the town centre next to the tourist information centre and a small cafe? If so, we were there and quite surprised at the time to see these Cavalier types strolling around the place as if it was still the time of the Civil War.  We bought a hobby horse called beauty from there for the kids. I don't know much about Methodism apart from the Wesleys but understand that there was an off-shoot called Primitive Methodism (later merged back) which concentrated on the rural poor in the C19 and may account for this type of Church in these areas.  |
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Dec 11, 2009 23:49:41 GMT
Rob the site is just out of the town on the way to Bideford. There is a small car parking area and public toilets, no cafe but there is aways a smack wagon parked there when ever I go there. I have marked on a map the exact location.  |
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rjdgull
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Post by rjdgull on Dec 12, 2009 0:10:30 GMT
I'm with you now  I see the Information Centre is actually marked on the map so in a completely different place! The cottage we stayed at was at the bottom of school lane about 2 inches above the bonfire site. |
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Dec 12, 2009 0:15:44 GMT
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Post by longeatongull on Dec 12, 2009 17:50:33 GMT
Rob the site is just out of the town on the way to Bideford. There is a small car parking area and public toilets, no cafe but there is aways a smack wagon parked there when ever I go there. I have marked on a map the exact location. Hey Dave smack wagon?  sounds good...no wonder you are always smiling ;D ;D ;D |
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Mar 5, 2010 17:48:57 GMT
UPDATE The last time I had the chance to go to the site was the 11th of December and not too much progress had been made, but then that was due to the weather and also the fact it’s not going to be burned down until Saturday 28th August 2010. When I did my run sheet for Tuesday of this week I noticed for a rare change I had no need to go to Holsworthy the next day and had planned then to visit the site, only a customer at Holsworthy had called Toolfix after I had gone home and that put paid to my plans. I only noticed when I was at Okehampton early this morning that I had no need to go to Holsworthy and decided there and then to drive to Bideford via Torrington and check out the site. Once again it was clear not a lot of work had been done on the castle but there has been some done and I took the opportunity to walk around the back of it. It is fenced off but there is a sort of path you can use and I was so glad there was such a hard frost on the site as else I would have gotten rather dirty. Around the back you can see all the pallets use in it and when it does go up its going to be one mighty big fire for sure. It was bloody freezing I can tell you and I was so glad when I got back into my van and could get warm again. I expect it will be a few more months before I can visit the site again and hopefully with the better weather coming I can report some more progress in my next update. A very frosty site   Side of castle  Around the back      |
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Post by David Graham's Eighth Pint on Mar 9, 2010 17:46:58 GMT
I love the road from Okehampton to Bideford Who doesn't? Hatherleigh is on that road! Use to go to this bonfire almost annually as a kid. A tremendous show and evening out. |
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Apr 9, 2010 17:41:03 GMT
It’s just over a month from the last time I visited the site and what a contrast in the weather it was today. A month ago it was very frosty and bitterly cold and today it was in the bright morning sun with just a little nip in the air. The grass was very wet and I made the mistake of walking around the back of the castle again, last month the ground was frozen solid and today it was like a bog and my work boots sunk into some deep mud and I had to clean them off before getting back in my van. Driving around North Devon in the sun on the more minor roads is far more pleasurable than driving on the M5 as I was yesterday and I really enjoyed to day, even more so as I found plenty of work to keep the boss happy. Talking about work it seems our Dewalt Service Centre Of The Year award has paid good dividends already and along with just one other company in the UK, we will be doing all the Dewalt warrantee repairs for Screwfix for the whole of the country. I joked with the boss that I mush have got it wrong and we were not just picked out of a hat to win the award, he said it had been down to all our hard work. I also enjoyed driving along a road I have never been on before and saw some great cottages that I wished I could have taken a picture of, but there was nowhere close I could park the van. I have talked before how I love to discover new small communities and I was not disappointed with the ones I drove through today. I was in Crediton around 11.30am and checked the forum on a PC at a company there who has it saved in their favourites for me (not that there was much to check) my good friend told me of road works between there and Cowley Bridge just outside Exeter and said it had taken him nearly 90 minutes just to get to Exeter early in the morning. I did know one way to avoid the road works by heading out of Crediton the way I came from Tiverton and going over the Creedy Bridge and head for Thorverton. But I decided to try a new way and I turned of the road to Exeter by Crediton train station and over the level crossing heading toward Tedburn St Mary and then picking up the A30. This route would bring me in the wrong end of Exeter that I really wanted but I was in good time and the sun was really shinning brightly now and so I said to myself why not. It was real postman pat country and the road was mostly single track with a few passing places, I went through Venny Tedburn where I saw one cottage that I will go back one day soon and take a picture of. How come you can drive for a mile or two and not see a car and then come to a place in the road where there are seven of you in total and two happens to be large vans. If only some stayed in those passing places and not drive up the car in front’s ass that then means no one can go anywhere, life would be so simple. The young lady in the Renault people carrier trying to squeeze past me was really struggling; I could see in my mirror she had a good foot and wound my window down to tell her, only she saw another car coming up the hill the way I was going and she shouted out” another driver who does not know where reverse is” I guess she thought that about me, but I had put the van in a place I knew she could get pass, only she was useless at driving through small gaps it seems. Anyway two pictures taken today and you can see its coming along nicely.   |
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Dave
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Post by Dave on May 7, 2010 19:46:29 GMT
After leaving home for work yesterday morning at 5.15am and getting home at 5.30pm and all for just eight hours pay as I had so many calls to do that were not done last week when I was on holiday, I decided to make sure I did not work so many hours today. Not that it worked out that way in the end and I still somehow managed to work another two hours today for free, seems I’m just some sort of a charity case where my job in concerned. So at 8am and all calls done In Okehampton I decided I really had no need to go to Holsworthy and went once again via Torrington to get to Bideford and took the chance to check on the castle. I also wanted to try out the camera on my new phone that I have been waiting over two weeks for. My last five phones have always been Samsung ones, while each new phone had more features than the last one, once you know your way around a Samsung phone they are all pretty much the same to use. My last one was Samsungs first attempt at a touch screen phone the F700 and to be honest was a bit big and chunky and compared to my new phone was not really that good at all or worked that well as far as the touch screen was concerned. This time I went for the very latest phone from HTC the Desire and boy am I impressed with it, on my Samsung F700 I would pull up by a toilet block, get the phone to start loading the forum and hope it would be loaded by the time I got back to the van. This new phone loads the forum almost instantly (thinking of buying Merse one) and yes you can still make phone calls on it. Anyway not a lot of work has been done but I loved the soldiers that have been added and I’m sure over the next month or so much more work will be done on the castle, it almost feels a shame they are going to set light to it all.    |
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merse
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Post by merse on May 7, 2010 19:58:48 GMT
I would pull up by a toilet block, get the phone to start loading  I thnk there are certain delicacies a man should keep to himself Dave!  |
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Jul 16, 2010 16:26:45 GMT
16th July 2010The 28th of August is not that far away now and after watching the castle being built over the last year, I’m not sure I would want to stand and just watch it all go up in smoke. I’m really pleased I started this thread and each entry I have made has shown the progress made since the last time I was able to visit the site. The front must now be almost finished and one new addition I saw today was one of those stone throwing catapult devices that is sitting right in front of the castle. I took a walk around the back and I don’t think they are going to put a brick effect wall on the back of the castle, there really would be no need as there will not be any access the rear of the castle on the night it goes up. It’s going to be a hell of a bonfire as it is packed and packed with old pallets and I bet the heat it’s going to give off will be immense and I wonder just how long it will burn for. At the side of the castle there looks like what is going to be a dragon being made, maybe it will be used to get the fire started, you can see it now with flames coming out of its mouth. I will try and get that way again just before its due to be set alight and take the very last set of pictures of it, then hopefully find some pictures taken with it fully in flames.       
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We bought a hobby horse called beauty from there for the kids.
I see the Information Centre is actually marked on the map so in a completely different place! The cottage we stayed at was at the bottom of school lane about 2 inches above the bonfire site. 
sounds good...no wonder you are always smiling ;D ;D ;D