Calstock
Encyclopedia
Calstock is civil parish and a large village in south east Cornwall
, England, United Kingdom, on the border with Devon
. The village is situated on the River Tamar
6 miles (9.7 km) south west of Tavistock and 10 miles (16.1 km) north of Plymouth
.
The parish had a population
of 6,095 in the 2001 census
. The parish encompasses 5760 acres (23.3 km²) of land, 70 acre (0.2832802 km²) of water, and 44 acre (0.17806184 km²) of the tidal Tamar.
As well as Calstock, other settlements in the parish include Albaston
, Chilsworthy, Gunnislake
, Harrowbarrow
, Latchley
and Metherell
.
Calstock village is within the Tamar Valley AONB, is overlooked by Cotehele
house and gardens, and lies on the scenic Tamar Valley railway
. Calstock railway station
opened on 2 March 1908. The village is twinned with Saint-Thuriau
in Brittany
, France.
, or pre-Roman times, settlers attracted by the rich source of minerals, such as tin
, in the area. A Roman fort
, only the third known in Cornwall, was discovered next to the church in 2008.
In Saxon
times Calstock was in the Kingdom of Cornwall
, which resisted the spread of Wessex
from the east. In 838 CE
Wessex had spread as far as the Tamar, and a battle for independence was fought near Calstock. Following the Norman Conquest, Calstock manor was recorded in the Domesday Book
. The Saxon manor was taken over, and in the 14th century became part of the Duchy of Cornwall
: one of the 17 Antiqua maneria
.
Mining was important in Calstock from Mediaeval times, with the Duchy mining silver
. The industry was booming in the late 19th century and the discovery of copper
, and coupled with nearby granite
quarrying made Calstock a busy port. The rapid population boom due to the growth of industry led, in 1849, to an outbreak of cholera
. The industry declined in the early 20th century due to foreign competition, and now only the ruined pump houses that dot the landscape remain.
The Tamar is navigable to boats past Calstock some 3 miles (4.8 km) upstream to Morwellham Quay with some 10 feet (3 m) or even 20 feet (6.1 m) of water at extreme spring tides. Calstock Quay was once important for transporting goods, and in the Victorian era
when steamers
brought tourists to the village, Calstock was visited by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1846. The importance of the river as a transport route declined with the construction of the 14 miles (22.5 km) Tamar Valley railway at the start of the 20th century. The village is still dominated by the railway's viaduct, which was first crossed by truck on 8 August 1907 and first used by passengers on 2 March 1908.
, 1853-54.
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
, England, United Kingdom, on the border with Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
. The village is situated on the River Tamar
River Tamar
The Tamar is a river in South West England, that forms most of the border between Devon and Cornwall . It is one of several British rivers whose ancient name is assumed to be derived from a prehistoric river word apparently meaning "dark flowing" and which it shares with the River Thames.The...
6 miles (9.7 km) south west of Tavistock and 10 miles (16.1 km) north of Plymouth
Plymouth
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
.
The parish had a population
Population
A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
of 6,095 in the 2001 census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
. The parish encompasses 5760 acres (23.3 km²) of land, 70 acre (0.2832802 km²) of water, and 44 acre (0.17806184 km²) of the tidal Tamar.
As well as Calstock, other settlements in the parish include Albaston
Albaston
Albaston is a hamlet in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is located at Ordnance Survey grid reference .Albaston is about 1 mile from the centre of Gunnislake and half-a-mile from Gunnislake railway station, the terminus of the Tamar Valley Line from Plymouth.A brewery was once located in...
, Chilsworthy, Gunnislake
Gunnislake
Gunnislake is a large village in east Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated in the Tamar Valley approximately ten miles north of Plymouth...
, Harrowbarrow
Harrowbarrow
Harrowbarrow is a village in east Cornwall, England, UK....
, Latchley
Latchley
Latchley is a village in the Tamar Valley in Cornwall, England, UK....
and Metherell
Metherell, Cornwall
Metherell is a village in east Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated three miles east of Callington and two miles west of Calstock village in Calstock civil parish....
.
Calstock village is within the Tamar Valley AONB, is overlooked by Cotehele
Cotehele
Cotehele, , is a mediaeval/Tudor house located in the parish of Calstock, Cornwall, England, UK. In Cornish the placename is Koesheyl . Probably originating circa 1300, the main phases of building appear to have been by Sir Richard Edgcumbe from 1485–89 and his son, Sir Piers Edgcumbe, from...
house and gardens, and lies on the scenic Tamar Valley railway
Tamar Valley Line
The Tamar Valley Line is a railway line from Devonport in Plymouth Devon, to Gunnislake in Cornwall, United Kingdom. The line follows the River Tamar for much of its route.-History:...
. Calstock railway station
Calstock railway station
Calstock railway station is an unstaffed railway station serving the village of Calstock in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated at at the north end of Calstock Viaduct which carries the railway at high level over the River Tamar.-History:...
opened on 2 March 1908. The village is twinned with Saint-Thuriau
Saint-Thuriau
Saint-Thuriau is a commune in the Morbihan department of Brittany in north-western France.-Demographics:Inhabitants of Saint-Thuriau are called in French Thuriaviens or Thurialais.-References:* * -External links:* *...
in Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
, France.
Early history
There is evidence of human settlement in Calstock from RomanRoman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
, or pre-Roman times, settlers attracted by the rich source of minerals, such as tin
Tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...
, in the area. A Roman fort
Castra
The Latin word castra, with its singular castrum, was used by the ancient Romans to mean buildings or plots of land reserved to or constructed for use as a military defensive position. The word appears in both Oscan and Umbrian as well as in Latin. It may have descended from Indo-European to Italic...
, only the third known in Cornwall, was discovered next to the church in 2008.
In Saxon
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
times Calstock was in the Kingdom of Cornwall
Kingdom of Cornwall
The Kingdom of Cornwall was an independent polity in southwest Britain during the Early Middle Ages, roughly coterminous with the modern English county of Cornwall. During the sub-Roman and early medieval periods Cornwall was evidently part of the kingdom of Dumnonia, which included most of the...
, which resisted the spread of Wessex
Wessex
The Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest...
from the east. In 838 CE
Common Era
Common Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...
Wessex had spread as far as the Tamar, and a battle for independence was fought near Calstock. Following the Norman Conquest, Calstock manor was recorded in the Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
. The Saxon manor was taken over, and in the 14th century became part of the Duchy of Cornwall
Duchy of Cornwall
The Duchy of Cornwall is one of two royal duchies in England, the other being the Duchy of Lancaster. The eldest son of the reigning British monarch inherits the duchy and title of Duke of Cornwall at the time of his birth, or of his parent's succession to the throne. If the monarch has no son, the...
: one of the 17 Antiqua maneria
Antiqua maneria
The Antiqua maneria were the original 17 manors belonging to the Earldom of Cornwall.After March 1337 these manors passed to the new Duchy of Cornwall which was created by King Edward III to give financial support to his son Edward, the Black Prince .The table below shows the 17 Antiqua maneria...
.
Mining and transport
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
. The industry was booming in the late 19th century and the discovery of copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
, and coupled with nearby granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
quarrying made Calstock a busy port. The rapid population boom due to the growth of industry led, in 1849, to an outbreak of cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
. The industry declined in the early 20th century due to foreign competition, and now only the ruined pump houses that dot the landscape remain.
The Tamar is navigable to boats past Calstock some 3 miles (4.8 km) upstream to Morwellham Quay with some 10 feet (3 m) or even 20 feet (6.1 m) of water at extreme spring tides. Calstock Quay was once important for transporting goods, and in the Victorian era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
when steamers
Steamboat
A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...
brought tourists to the village, Calstock was visited by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1846. The importance of the river as a transport route declined with the construction of the 14 miles (22.5 km) Tamar Valley railway at the start of the 20th century. The village is still dominated by the railway's viaduct, which was first crossed by truck on 8 August 1907 and first used by passengers on 2 March 1908.
Parish church of St Andrew
The church was built partly in the early and partly in the late 15th century: the western tower is of three stages and of granite. The Edgcumbe Chapel contains two monuments of the late 17th century: to Piers Edgcumbe and to Jemima, Countess of Sandwich. The rectory is the work of Decimus BurtonDecimus Burton
Decimus Burton was a prolific English architect and garden designer, He is particularly associated with projects in the classical style in London parks, including buildings at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and London Zoo, and with the layout and architecture of the seaside towns of Fleetwood and...
, 1853-54.
Primary school
Calstock Community Primary School was built in 1901 and opened on 6 January 1902. At that time the school consisted of just two main classrooms. It has since been extended with the addition of the infant suite plus the Head Teacher's office which has to be shared with the school secretary. The infant suite extension won an award for architectural design, in keeping with the remainder of the school. The centenary of the school was celebrated in the summer of 2002.See also
- Calstock railway stationCalstock railway stationCalstock railway station is an unstaffed railway station serving the village of Calstock in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated at at the north end of Calstock Viaduct which carries the railway at high level over the River Tamar.-History:...
- East Cornwall Mineral RailwayEast Cornwall Mineral RailwayThe East Cornwall Mineral Railway was a narrow gauge industrial railway opened in 1872 to serve the iron ore and stone quarries around Callington in Cornwall....
- Tamar Valley LineTamar Valley LineThe Tamar Valley Line is a railway line from Devonport in Plymouth Devon, to Gunnislake in Cornwall, United Kingdom. The line follows the River Tamar for much of its route.-History:...