History

Lopwell the lost hamlet By local historian Paul Rendell

The River Tavy fl ows for some 20 miles from the heights of Dartmoor to join the River Tamar at Warleigh Point near Tamerton Foliot. In the 18th and 19th century, this river was used by barges which travelled as far upstream as Lopwell, a small hamlet with its own public house. Over the years, the river became silted up with the constant washing down of the waste from the tin and copper mines further upriver and soil running off the fi elds. In the 1950s and 1960s, passenger boats from Plymouth came upriver for evening trips. Now, only very small boats can reach the hamlet of Lopwell. The oldest building at Lopwell is St Martin’s, a Norman chapel. In the 16th century there was the chapel, a ‘rest house’ and a house called ‘Martinstowe’ (now known as Maristow), owned by Plympton Priory. Following the dissolution of the monasteries during the reign of Henry Vlll, it became the property of the Slanning Family. During the 1770s Sir Manasseh Lopes bought the house and his family owned it until the early 20th century. By then, it had become a 49 bedroom mansion, but it was sold in 1930s and the long reign of the Lopes family living there ended. Since then it has had a number diff erent purposes including a residential school. In the early 1970s a serious fi re took hold and it remained a ruin for nearly 20 years, until it was restored and converted into apartments as it is today. The hamlet was to be found on both sides of the River Tavy, some buildings in the parish of Bere Ferrers and some within Tamerton Foliot. On the tithe map of 1844 it was

known as Lophill and included three fords and a ferry across the river plus a limekiln, a number of houses on both sides and three mines. The public house was run by a Richard Laundry. The ferry was run by the Vivian brothers - this was merely a rowing boat, used just at high tide, as fords could be used at other times, with wooden posts marking the route. The Vivians lived in a cottage beside the river. A ferry was used at this point until the early 1940s; the last ferryman was a retired Commissioned Shipwright of the Royal Navy called McLeod. There were a number of quays used to bring up limestone to be used on the fi elds and possibly on local buildings as lime mortar. Maristow Quay was used for the big house only and had its own boat house. The public house was on the Bere Ferrers side. It was owned by The Earl of Mount Edgcumbe and the woods and mines in the valley were owned by Sir Ralph Lopes. Lopwell Mine was worked in the 1880s for silver and lead. The ore would have been transported along the river by a fl at-bottomed barge and would have been taken to Plymouth before transportation further afi eld. Possibly the miners would have a drink in the inn near the Ferryman’s cottage. The mine workings were down at the bottom of the hill, but at the

top of Whitecliff Wood, there used to stand a chimney stack with a fl ue running down the hillside for about 400 yards. This was constructed as a result of an agreement between the mine owners and the mineral owner, Sir Massey Lopes, as he he did not want to see the ugly chimney from Maristow House, across the Tavy! Market gardening would have also taken place within the area and in the 1950s, fl owers and fruit from the fi elds at Bere Ferrers would have been loaded on to horse drawn carts, taken along the estuary and then across the

fords and on to Tamerton railway station, before heading for London’s Covent Garden Market. There used to be a nursery not far from Maristow House and you can still see the terraced landscape near the weir today. The original dam at Lopwell was constructed in 1953 by Plymouth City Council to create an additional water supply for Plymouth. The dam was rebuilt in the 1970s. Since then, the hamlet has got smaller - there are just a few houses left near the old South West Water pump house, today used as a café. n

Ordnance Survey © Crown copyright. Media 082/14

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