Further to our initial conservation work in 2014 on eight of the PCWW (Plymouth Corporation Waterworks) boundstones, we have now had another very successful day on which seven more stones were conserved, with thanks again to the very generous support of Graham Colton.
For the original write-up on this initiative please see this news article.
On 16 October 2015 six Dartmoor Society volunteers (Tom and Elisabeth Greeves, Tanya and Barry Welch who brought along some of their tools, Barrie Quilliam, and Simon Booty who also supplied tools as well as the use of his Land Rover and Dumper truck), all met at the start of the track to Nuns Cross Farm.
Graham Colton’s driver Mark Cole also attended with a tractor and trailer, and his help was truly invaluable. Warm thanks must also go to Justine and David Colton who very kindly provided use of another tractor and front loader. Weather conditions were perfect and the ground was uncharacteristically dry.
We all headed past Nuns Cross Farm to the south-western slope of Eylesbarrow, to work on two of the remotest PCWW boundstones. We then moved to the Forest of Dartmoor boundary between Eylesbarrow and Nuns Cross and were able to conserve another four PCWW stones as well as an unmarked Forest of Dartmoor boundary stone.
Two of the stones were recumbent and took extra effort to re-erect. All the stones had hollows around their bases which required filling with soil, and some had rushes growing against them, which needed trimming.
The Dartmoor Society is most grateful to have received from the Maristow Estate a letter dated 15 October 2015 and a generous donation in the form of a cheque for £500 ‘In recognition of the conservation work your organisation carries out on the Commons of Dartmoor’, in the hope that it ‘will help towards future projects’.
A further day of work is being planned for 2016.