Widecombe in the Moor - plays an integral part in my novel Mr de Sousa's Legacy

If you don’t already know of it, I want to introduce you to Widecombe-in-the-Moor a small village located within the heart of the Dartmoor National Park in Devon, England. The name is thought to derive from 'Withy-combe' which means Willow Valley. Although my novel Mr de Sousa’s Legacy is marketed as a Cornish love story, an integral part of the book in set in Widecombe during the 2^nd World War.

 

 

I first visited Widecombe about eight years ago whilst on a camping holiday and as I walked the quiet lanes skirting this pretty village I felt as though I stepped into a Thomas Hardy novel. I was so inspired by its beauty, I knew I had to use it in my novel.

 

 

The village is well known for Widecombe Fair, held annually on the 2nd Tuesday in September and celebrated by a folksong of the same name, featuring 'Old Uncle Tom Cobley and All'.

 

 

The Widecombe Fair Poem and Folk Song describes the 'adventures' of Uncle Tom Cobley and his friends and the fate that befell the poor old grey mare that they borrowed from Tom Pearce... The words were first published in 1880.
It is based on a supposedly true happening. Tom Cobley's grave is at Spreyton, just North of Dartmoor.

 

The church of St Pancras is known as the 'Cathedral of the Moors' in recognition of its 120 foot tower and relatively large capacity for such a small village.  This is the church I had in mind when I wrote about the Harvest Festival and also the venue where one of my characters got married.

 

The church was originally built in the fourteenth century, in the Perpendicular style (late Gothic), using locally quarried granite. It was enlarged over the following two centuries, partly on the proceeds of the local tin mining trade. Inside, the ceiling is decorated with roof bosses, including the tinner’s emblem of a circle of three hares (known locally as the Tinners' Rabbits).

 

In Widecombe churchyard is the grave of novelist Beatrice Chase who lived in a cottage close to the village. Her real name was Olive Katharine Parr, and she was a direct descendant of William Parr, the brother of Catherine, the sixth wife of Henry VIII.

The Darmoor ponies roam the village green quite freely. But there is great concern over the number of ponies being killed on open Moorland roads. I have heard that some of the ponies wear a neck bands which shows up in the headlights of cars at night which keeps them safe, but none of the ones I saw, when I was there, had them on.

 

Mr de Sousa's legacy is now available in Paperback and on kindle

Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1490930760

Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00DS6DO6A