Everywhere you go in the South Devon National Landscape, you get a real feeling of ‘time depth’.
The history is not just found at special sites and monuments, it is woven into the very fabric of the landscape.
- The whole shape of the agricultural landscape – its small fields, hedges, remnant orchards and scattering of farmsteads and hamlets – has been formed over 3,000 years.
- There is a rich maritime and military legacy of coastal forts, castles, lighthouses, day marks, harbours, lookouts, coastguard cottages, airstrips and aerial masts, spanning from the Iron Age to the Cold War.
- Ancient drove roads, ridge roads, sunken green lanes, hedges and turnpike roads, with their highway ‘furniture’ of milestones, toll houses and bridges, wind their way through the landscape.
- Historic building styles using local stone, thatch, slate and cob are seen in field barns, labourers’ terraces, farmsteads and villages.
- Big landed estates have left a pattern of parkland, large houses, lodges, carriage drives, distinctive estate villages and alms houses.
- Rivers and estuaries have their own special heritage of mills, lime kilns, quays, fishponds, weirs and ships’ hulks.
