Sticklepath is a very special place on the edge of Dartmoor. My family lived here for more than 200 years. Join me to travel back in time, leaving the comfort of our automobiles as we drive from Exeter towards Cornwall along the old A30 to Sticklepath. Travellers along the ancient ‘ridgeway’ may have had a horse and cart but would mainly be on the ever trusty “Shanks’s pony”, in other words on foot, as they passed through South Zeal to rejoin our route just before Sticklepath Bridge. We follow the less steep road, built in 1830, down the hill past Ramsley Mine with its spoil heap. Many of the workers here came from Sticklepath.

We continue to Ford Cross. In my youth there was a useful garage at Ford Cross, the first place I bought petrol, now houses. Turning left here would take you to Ford Farm (colloquially ‘vord varm’) where mangolds (mangel-worzels) were grown to feed livestock and potatoes for the people.

Entering the village the first dwelling we see is Bridge Cottage on the right. There are more houses now but in 1898 this was the first. Much earlier it was known as ‘Scaw Mill’ and had a separate leat running from the moor to its small water wheel. Now Bridge Cottage and Bridge House are on opposite sides of the road. Before 1830 the main road did not exist and Bridge House holdings came out across to the road at the far side of Bridge Cottage. There were apparently 4 separate households in Bridge House and the adjacent Jane’s Cottage before 1830. Now just one.

Bridge Cottage is isolated on a tongue of land between the two roads. One hundred years ago this was the house of Will and Beat Hellier.

Born in 1876, we find young Willie taking part in Sticklepath entertainments eg in a ‘waxworks’, I presume a tableau, of “Pear’s Soap” (Western Times – Friday 06 April 1888) as part of the evening’s entertainment alongside others providing musical items and shadow theatre. Perhaps his prize winning vegetables in the Sticklepath flower show (eg Exeter and Plymouth Gazette – Friday 15 August 1902) caught Beatrice Mary Bowden’s eye? William Hellier married Beatrice, daughter of Emanuel Bowden, an agricultural labourer who lived from 1843 to 1920, in 1903. Unfortunately no newspaper reports or photographs have yet been found of this event.

Beatrice was the eldest of at least 11 siblings, rather under-estimating her aged on the wedding day (civil birth registration suggests her birthday was 26th December 1880). Charles her youngest brother said they often just had a pan of fried potatoes, perhaps with some onion thrown in, to share for their dinner, and were often left feeling hungry. Beatrice was a live in servant and cook for a gentleman in Sticklepath village prior to her marriage. I suspect she will have supported her wider family and helped make ends meet as a wife, by taking lodgers (suggested by the censuses), and as her mother before her by taking in laundry (especially with a ready water supply in her garden).

William was already working as a stone cutter at the age of 14. By 1911 he calls himself a miner and in 1939 he is a pneumatic driller and quarry heavy worker. He lived his whole life in Sticklepath (1876 – 1947). He was said to be “of a kindly and retiring disposition”.

His obituary also tells us he had been in poor health for a long time. Like many miners and quarrymen he suffered with his chest. Pulmonary conditions like chronic bronchitis were common among them, and smoking may have also contributed to that. His death, from heart failure and chronic bronchitis at the age of 71 years, was certified by Dr C Sharp who lived just across the road in Bridge House.

Living East of Sticklepath Bridge they were in the South Tawton Parish. Those just over the Bridge and the majority of the village were in Sampford Courtenay Parish. This is relevant when looking for birth marriage and death certificates. The funeral took place at St Mary’s Sticklepath (which suggests he was ‘church’ rather than ‘chapel’, and perhaps means he is most likely to be found in Sticklepath burying ground). The newspaper report helpfully names the mourners which includes several sister’s married names.

Although the bridge has been widened they maintained its triangular refuges where pedestrians could avoid the passing dusty carts and carriages and later the muddier speedier cars.

The triangular shape continues below as cutwaters. Walking across the bridge now you hardly hear the Taw River rushing beneath the road for traffic noise. I wonder what it will be like in 20 years time -electric cars self-piloted to reduce speed, noise and accidents perhaps?

Beatrice Mary Bowden outlived her husband by 25 years. In her later years she moved across the bridge into the main part of Sticklepath living in Effra Cottage (now re-named) opposite the Methodist chapel, next to Farley Cottage. She lived with her widowed sister Emily, where their mother Mary Ann had lived. My great Aunts, (Auntie Em and Auntie Beat) still boiled their kettle on a grate over their open fire in the 1960s.

This post is partly based on an assignment done for a #Pharos online course with Dr Janet Few which resulted in a publication (Shields, Helen. Walking Sticklepath through the Centuries: Part 1, Devon Family Historian, vol. 170, (2019) pp.20-25). I hope as my One Place Study progresses to be able to build portfolios for each person or family, not just a list of dates from the census.

Comments and information encouraged – please feel free to comment especially if I have got anything wrong!