From: The Coasts of Devon and Lundy Island, John Lloyd Warden Page. (Horace Cox 1895)
"It is a long, desolate piece of waste, this warren, and I recommend no one who is a stranger to attempt to cross it after dark. For at high water parts of are covered by the sea, which leaves as it retires pools and slimy streams that are unpleasant if not absolutely dangerous to encounter. Most of it is covered with grass or rushes. Except as a rifle range, it is apparently of little use. At one time an attempt was made to lay down oyster beds at the broad end near the 'Bight', the name given to that part of the estuary that lies, a calm sheet of water along the inner slope. But I do not think the projectors of this enterprise ever made much of it, and I fancy the most valuable product of the Warren nowadays is the rabbit."
There are splendid verses about Dartmoor by John Lloyd Warden Page at the touch of a button and a likeness of him with glorious mustachios.
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rifle range
ReplyDeleteThe beaches of Victorian East Devon seem rather unsafe. I noticed recently on an old map that the beach on the Exmouth side of Orcombe Point (below what's now Queen's Drive) used to be a range too. Quite handy terrain for it, with the vertical cliff as a back-stop.