DEVON BOOK OF THE YEAR 2016
Called Home
The Dartmoor Tin Miner 1860-1940
Photographs & Memory
by Tom Greeves
This book is the product of two core elements - first, photographs taken between 1860 and 1940 of the last days of Dartmoor's high moorland tin industry and, secondly, recollection of those days from the people of Dartmoor themselves. Both components have been gathered by Tom Greeves since about 1970, involving countless conversations, correspondence and journeys, even to America. Three important mines are the focus of this book - Hexworthy, Vitifer and Golden Dagger. Unique images of people and machinery bring to life the sites that have now been reclaimed by the moor, and the voices of those once involved in Dartmoor's pre-eminent industry are heard again.
ISBN 978 0 906294 87 1. 160 pages, 166 illustrations. Hardback with dustwrapper. £16.00
Available from bookshops or from Twelveheads Press at http://www.twelveheads.com
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Dartmoor's Earliest Photographs
Landscape & Place 1860 - 1880
by Tom Greeves
By the mid-19th century the new discipline of photography was attracting many skilled practitioners. Presented here are some 125 images of Dartmoor in the 1860s and 1870s. Most have never been previously published in book form. They are the earliest precise record we have of the Dartmoor landscape - familiar, yet different to today, with some remarkable changes in vegetation and buildings. Fascinating subjects include popular landmarks, but also archaeological sites, bridges, churches, farmland, houses, military training, mills, mines, towns, viaducts and woods, giving a unique view of Victorian Dartmoor, often with people giving scale and context. The nationally renowned photographer Francis Bedford is well represented, as are many local photographers, such as William Merrifield of Tavistock and William Spreat of Exeter.
ISBN 978 0 906294 80 2. 124 pages, 135 illustrations. Full colour hard back. £18.00
Available from bookshops or from Twelveheads Press at http://www.twelveheads.com
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The Warren House Inn - Dartmoor
by Tom Greeves and Elisabeth Stanbrook
Dartmoor's most famous public house, with its cosy fire reputed to have never gone out since 1845, is located at 1425 ft above sea-level, and is surrounded by heather moorland and ancient tinworks. Its rich human story is the subject of a new edition of the book The Warren House Inn - Dartmoor by Tom Greeves and Elisabeth Stanbrook.
First published in 2001, this new edition is brought right up-to-date with additional text and three new historic images - of a wonderful horse-drawn carriage bringing visitors to the inn in about 1900, of a group of sixteen men outside the inn with publican Arthur Hurn in about 1950, and of the interior newly refurbished in the mid-1960s.
Read about Jonas Coaker the famous 19th-century landlord, the 'salting in of a corpse', tales of severe weather, and much else.
Priced at £4.95 and 64 pages long, this well- illustrated and carefully documented book explores the social history of the pub and its predecessor on the other side of the road. It is available from the Warren House Inn itself, and good bookshops.
The authors are both well-known writers and researchers about Dartmoor.
ISBN 1 870083 40 7 Price £4.95
Available direct from the Warren House Inn or from bookshops.
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Longships Lighthouse
by Elisabeth Stanbrook
Just 2km beyond Land's End stands the iconic Longships lighthouse, the vision of the ill-fated Lieut Henry Smith. Since 1795, the lighthouse has undergone many changes including the purchase by Trinity House and a complete rebuild. Construction problems, keepers' trials and tribulations and the skills of the relief boatmen all feature, as does the full fury of the Atlantic Ocean. Strong links were also forged with nearby Sennen from where the lighthouse was serviced.
A wealth of information, and images, has been revealed by the author's extensive work with original sources.
ISBN 978 0 906294 86 4. 64 pages, 77 illustrations. A5 Soft back. £6.50
Available from bookshops or from Twelveheads Press at http://www.twelveheads.com
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Bishop Rock Lighthouse
by Elisabeth Stanbrook
Bishop Rock lighthouse, exposed to the full force of the Atlantic Ocean, is at the very edge of the dramatic Western Rocks off the Isles of Scilly, and stands as a tribute to an amazing feat of Victorian engineering. This book tells of its construction and modifications from the 1840s onwards by a workforce of great skill and courage in often dangerous conditions, and of lighthouse keepers isolated in the tower, and the relief boatmen who provided a vital link with the shore.
The author draws extensively on original sources, revealing a wealth of information and images.
ISBN 978 0 906294 85 7. 64 pages, 81 illustrations. A5 Soft back. £6.50
Available from bookshops or from Twelveheads Press at http://www.twelveheads.com