Bay’s History comes to life with local tours and community spirit

What a wonderful couple of weeks …with lots going on for the Agatha Christie festival around the area.

The Agatha Christie team ran a cream tea and history tour from All Saints Church, with a walk around Torre, including a look inside St Andrews Church & Agatha’s other connections in the area, including where she was born.

There have also been bus trips. The first one we had a wonderful trip to Princetown a couple of weeks ago, stopping at Dartmeet for a short walk along the beautiful river with lots of photo opportunities, then driving onto Princetown for lunch at the lovely Old Police Station before a trip to the Prison Museum. Thank goodness I took the head count when we left and no one was kept back for bad behaviour.

We have a full minibus going to the Donkey Sanctuary this week and then on October 10th, there is a trip to Seaton Tramway. So, if you fancy joining us and taking a ride on the tram through the beautiful nature reserves, then please do get in touch for more details.

We also had another successful open day at St. Michaels Chapel to coincide with Heritage Open Days Weekend. After a shaky start (the lock was so damaged I couldn’t get it open, so Carl Martin from Torbay Council came to the rescue to help us get in), we then had history talks from Dr Kevin Dixon, a beautiful recital from Elizabeth Goudge’s 1949 novel Gentian Hill by Margaret Forbes Hamilton, Keith Holman as the infamous Monk and all the wonderful people that managed the climb to visit us. A big thank you also to SWISCo for clearing the pathway from Barton Rd and around the site ensuring the access was as safe as possible on the day. It truly shows organisations and the community working in partnership to provide another successful event. 

There must have been more than 100 people who attended and combined with  a number of people from last year who want to be more involved in looking after the site to ensure the existing damage is kept to a minimum, this is true community spirit! 

Our history deserves to be kept alive, so keep an eye out for new things coming up; maybe apps to talk through key historical information and self guided walking tours?

If any of the above interests you, please get in touch with me, and I can add you to a distribution list or chat about how you would like to become involved. 

Tracy can be contacted via email: tracypleece@torbaycdt.org.uk or by phone 07977 187138