By: Blonde One
Normally when the Blonde One family go out for a little walk I am left in charge of the route planning but a recent walk took a different format. We were introduced to the newly reopened section of the Stover Canal by Little Mr Blonde. He is local to the Stover/Haytor area and has been usefully occupying himself recently with helping clear the canal and get it ready for some reopening (you see, it’s not true what they say about “the youth of today”. Some of them are only too happy to put themselves out for a bit of voluntary work!).
Stover Canal was first built and used by James Templer in 1790 and later connected with the Templer granite tramway which transported granite from Haytor quarries down to Teignmouth. The Canal (and the tramway) has long since fallen into disrepair and hasn’t been used for many a year (since approximately 1937 for the canal). This doesn’t stop walkers using it and the new section of towpath that was reopened on 17th August this year is a lovely stretch of walk linking parts of the Templer Way walk. The Stover Canal Society have been working hard on getting all sorts of funding and organising the restoration and repair of the canal including its locks and towpaths. The section was officially opened by a direct Templer descendant and now walkers seem to be regularly using the path which has been left abondoned and ignored for over 50 years.
The Society have an excellent website (www.stovercanal.co.uk) that’s well worth a look and gives details of the dates that working parties will be in action on the next section of canal. They have an excellent slogan that will ring true with you as much as with The Two Blondes. It can be applied to many aspects of Dartmoor not just the Stover Canal: ‘Built by our grandfathers, preserved for our grandchildren’.
It’s a lovely walk if you get chance.
