Trail 1- Bolt Head

South Sands Lifeboat House

The building on the left with the elaborate Dutch gables and pointed finials is the former South Sands Lifeboat Station. It was built in 1870 at a cost of £309 10s to house Salcombe’s first lifeboat, the Rescue. An inscription set in the window above the lifeboat doors records the gift of the building by Richard Durant of Sharpham, who also paid for the new lifeboat. Richard Durant was a wealthy silk merchant of Dutch Huguenot descent and it was in accordance with his wishes that the architect Charles H Cooke designed the building in the Dutch Colonial Revival Style. Until its closure in 1925, four rowing and sailing lifeboats were stationed here – the Rescue, Lesty, William and Emma - which launched for here on its ill-fated voyage on 27th October 1916 -  and the Sarah Ann Holden. When Salcombe Lifeboat Station re-opened in 1930 the new motor lifeboat was kept on moorings in the harbour

Keep following the road as it hugs the coastline and when you reach the point where the drive up to the National Trust’s Overbecks Gardens forks off to the right, keep left and follow the coast path (You will pass Overbecks on the way back if you wish to visit the gardens). When you reach the craggy section protected by railings below Sharp Tor look down over Starehole Bay – the last resting place of the famous Herzogin Cecilie. 

Herzogin Cecilie

In 1936 the annual grain race from Australia to England between the last of the great ‘windjammers’ was won by the famous Finnish barque Herzogin Cecilie, affectionately known as ‘the Duchess’. The 3,242-ton four-masted, steel barque reached Falmouth in 86 days, 7 days ahead of her nearest rival. On the following day, she set sail for Ipswich but at 3.50am on 25 April 1936 she ran aground in thick fog off Soar Mill Cove. The sad fate of the Duchess became headline news around the world and thousands of people flocked to see the wreck. Although holed in the bow, hopes remained that she might sail again and Captain Sven Eriksson and his wife Pamela set about organising the salvage of the uninsured ship. For seven long weeks the Herzogin Cecilie lay on the rocks, with a skeleton crew onboard, while efforts were made to remove some of her cargo and raise funds for her recovery.

On 19 June the Duchess was towed to Starehole Bay, which offered the prospect of greater shelter. Over the next few weeks, as volunteers worked to remove the cargo, a violent ground swell scoured the sandy bed on which the ship lay, exposing solid rock below. On 18 July a south-east gale broke the back of the Duchess, ending all hope that she might be saved. Nevertheless, the once-proud ship proved reluctant to die and it was not until January 1939 that she finally disappeared beneath the waves.

For the full story of the wreck, open the downloadable file on the Maritime History Resources page of the Maritime Museum’s website [ here ]. It is also worth visiting the museum where a whole section is devoted to the loss of ‘the Duchess’ with models, photograph albums and a number of artefacts from the wreck.

Carry on down to Starehole Bottom. Before you go through the gate by the stream you will see on your left a low section of masonry wall. This is all that remains of the original Cable Cottage where the Atlantic Telegraph first came ashore.

Atlantic Telegraph at Starehole Bottom

When the first successful Telegraph cable spanned the Atlantic in 1866 it was to prove as great an advance in global communication as that of the Internet over a century and a half later. The race to lay more cables included a French-American cable connecting with London via Salcombe. On 3rd December 1869 the cable was first brought ashore by the steamer William Cory in Starehole Bay and later linked Salcombe with the French-Atlantic telegraph cable at Brest. The scant remains of the stone building in the hollow at Starehole Bottom was the original instrument house used to test the cable. On 15th October 1871 the steamship Robert Lowe raised the shore end of the cable and re-routed it to North Sands where Cable Cottage became the headquarters of the engineers-in-charge.

A wireless telegraphy display which includes a section of the cable can be seen in the Maritime Museum.

Go through the gate, cross the footbridge and climb up the coast path to Bolt Head. Continuing along the coast path, go up a steep rise and through a gate in the stone wall. About 400 metres (¼ mile) along the flat plateau top there is a fine view down to Off Cove, where the trawler Amelie Suzanne was wrecked in 19.

Amelie Suzanne

In April 1972 the crew of Salcombe Lifeboat carried out a daring rescue, which saved the lives of five fishermen from the Belgian trawler Amelie Suzanne. In the early hours of 1 April, the trawler had run ashore in Off Cove, near Bolt Head, in dense fog. Fifteen minutes after launching, the lifeboat crew found the trawler hard aground at the foot of 60 metre (200ft) high cliffs. In the big swell, she was lifting and bumping heavily on the rocks and in danger of breaking-up. By now, visibility was about 30 metres (100ft) and the wind was west force 6. Because of the shallow water close to the trawler and the heavy backwash coming off the cliffs, Coxswain Hubert Distin decided to rescue the fishermen by using the breeches buoy. He carefully positioned the lifeboat and dropped anchor within 70 metres (230ft) of the trawler. The crew fired a rocket line across the vessel and, when this was made fast, they rigged the breeches buoy. The crew started to haul the fishermen, one at a time, through the water to the lifeboat. By 2.25am the first survivor was onboard and a quarter of an hour later all five had been taken off.

Follow the coast path round Off Cove and up onto the 130m (400 ft) high plateau known as the Warren. Continue for just over 1km (¾ mile) passing the jutting Goat Rock viewpoint on your left and you will reach a fingerpost above Steeple Cove. Carry on a few yards and you will be able to look down onto the spot where the Cantabria came ashore in 1932.  

Cantabria

Salcombe Lifeboat crew pulled off a tricky rescue in 1932 when they plucked 24 stranded seamen off the cliffs west of Bolt Head. The incident occurred in the early hours of 13 December 1932 when the 1,803-ton Spanish steamer Cantabria, on a voyage from Bilboa to Newcastle with a cargo of iron ore, came ashore in thick fog in Steeple Cove. The crew managed to get ashore in one of the ship’s boats but were unable to scale the steep cliffs. Many of the men had only felt slippers on their feet and little clothing – some wore only thin overalls from the engine room. Soaked to the skin in the thick fog, they clung to the rocks for several hours before they saw the lifeboat hove in sight.

The lifeboat had been launched at about 4.45am. Progress was slow as it groped its way along the coast in the thick fog. When he finally found the steamer, Coxswain Eddie Distin was unable to get the lifeboat close in to the cliffs because of the heavy ground swell. So he made fast to the Cantabria and used another of the ship’s boats to ferry all 24 men across to the lifeboat, two at a time. Arriving back in Salcombe by 8am, the shipwrecked crew was given accommodation, and revived with hot drinks and food. The Cantabria was badly holed and, with her back broken, she became a total wreck.

Continue along the coast path for another 1 km (¾ mile) until you can see Soar Mill Cove below and the Ham Stone just offshore. This is where the Herzogin Cecilie (see waypoint 3) first ran aground in 1936. It was also the site of the wreck of another well-known sailing ship – the Halloween.

Halloween

The crack tea clipper Halloween, a sister ship of the Cutty Sark, was wrecked in Soar Mill Cove on 17th January 1887. Laden with tea from Foochow, the 920-ton Halloween ran aground in thick fog at about 7.45pm. The crew of 19 fired flares and burned their clothing to attract the attention of the coastguard but to no avail and, with huge waves breaking over the ship, they had to endure a bitterly cold night clinging to the rigging. At dawn, three men swam ashore with a line but one drowned and the line slipped from the grasp of the other two men. At 7.30am a local farmer, John Ford of Southdown Farm, spotted the wreck and raised the alarm. An hour later, Hope Cove lifeboat was launched with the assistance of women from the village. Because of the danger of falling spars, the Coxswain, James Thornton, brought the lifeboat along the weather side of the ship and 13 men jumped aboard. One fell overboard but was quickly rescued. Heavy seas were now breaking and so the lifeboat went to the leeward side of the ship and the remaining six men were taken off. All 19 survivors were landed at Hope Cove at about midday where they were treated with much kindness by the villagers.

A number of artefacts from the wreck are on display in the Maritime Museum.

Lying off the coast about a mile to the south-west of Soar Mill Cove lies the wreck of the steamship Maine.

Maine

During the First World War, German U-boats inflicted severe losses on Allied shipping and nearly came close to starving Britain into submission in 1917. In the Channel, the waters off Salcombe Harbour and Start Point became a notorious ‘killing ground’ for U-boats, with at least 35 British or allied ‘merchantmen’ sunk, between 1917 and 1918, within 8 miles of the coast.

One of the victims was the 3,616ton, British steamship Maine which sailed on 21st March 1917 from London bound for Philadelphia. The following day Maine was some 13 miles south of Berry Head steering a course to keep her clear of the Devon coast when she was hit on the port side with a single torpedo from U-Boat UC-17. With her engines still running, Captain Bill Johnston headed towards the coast after sending out distress calls. Spotted by RN Torpedo Boat 99, the Maine was taken in tow but, a mile or so offshore from Soar Mill Cove, her internal bulkheads collapsed and she slowly sank, ‘gracefully, upright and on an even keel’. All the crew were taken off.

Torbay British Sub Aqua Club ‘discovered’ the wreck in 1961 and it has been a popular diving site ever since. Off the many items salvaged from her, the largest was a 6.5ton bronze propeller. The Maritime Archaeology Trust have published a detailed site report on the wreck of the Maine which can be downloaded from { here }.

The return route leaves the coast path before it drops down to the stone wall and footbridge above Soar Mill Cove. Next to a standing stone is a waymark post with an arrow pointing up the steep slope to the crags above the coast path that you came down. Climb the path up over the saddle and onto the plateau top and, keeping the stone wall on your left, keep going until you reach an isolated signal tower in the field to your left. Go through the gate to see the tower and the information board. There are a couple of alternative routes shown on the O.S. map if you don’t fancy the climb up. One takes you up the lane past Soar Mill Cove Hotel with its restaurant to a footpath running south from Lower Soar to the signal tower.

The Napoleonic Signal Station at West Soar

Over two hundred years ago the strange stone tower which stands isolated in a field east of Soar Mill Cove was an Admiralty Signal Station. When war with France broke out in 1793, the Channel coast was exposed to the threat of commerce raiding and invasion. To counter this, the Admiralty set up a series of 'early warning' signal stations in prominent coastal locations. The station was sited to allow a clear line of sight to, and from, the flanking stations at South Ground near Kingston to the west and Prawle Point to the east.

It is believed that the tower was topped by a fifty-foot topmast and two flanking thirty-foot flagstaffs. Coded messages were sent by various combinations of flags and balls. For night signals furze faggots or tar barrels were burnt in a beacon. Suspicious coastal shipping was then investigated by fast naval cruisers, after warnings had been passed along the chain to Maker Heights above Plymouth Dockyard. Each station was commanded by a half-pay Naval Lieutenant, assisted by a Petty Officer or Midshipman and two seamen.

For more information, visit the Maritime Museum where the signalling displays include the Armada Beacons, the Napoleonic War Coast Signal Stations and Shutter and Semaphore Telegraphs.

Return through the gate to the Warren and keep following the fence on the north side until you come to the footpath that leads inland past the converted farm buildings at Middle Soar. Follow this across the fields and when you reach the lane, turn left to reach the National Trust car park at East Soar. The grass airstrip that you can see here is on the site of RAF Bolt Head.

RAF Bolt Head

RAF Bolt Head was built during World War 2 as a satellite station of RAF Exeter. After the harvest of 1940 the land was taken over, hedges removed and two Somerfield track runways, consisting of coconut matting with metal grids on top, were laid. The station was originally used by fighters of 10 and 11 group to escort bombers. The cliff-top site allowed the fighters maximum range for these sorties into France. Later in the build-up for D-Day, Spitfires and Typhoons by day and Mosquitoes and Beaufighters by night, used the station for raids across the channel. It was also a base for Air Sea Rescue using Lysanders, Spitfires and Walruses. At first the personnel were under canvas but as the war progressed facilities improved with huts and hangers being built.

RAF Bolt Head was operational from 1941 until 1945. RAF Hope Cove, a Ground Control Interceptor Station (GCI), was established in 1941 to direct fighter operations in this sector of the English Channel. On the Warren there were top-secret communication installations concerned with the D-Day invasions. RAF Bolt Head finally closed in 1947 and in 1953 part of the airfield around the GCI site became a radar station. A nuclear bunker was built on the site of the GCI and was in use during the Cold War. [Source: On-site memorial plaque installed in 1998]

The RAF Bolt Head’s Operations Record Book and many other documents relating to the airfield and radar stations can be viewed in the Maritime Museum. For a downloadable file on Salcombe in the Second World War go to the Maritime History Resources page of the Maritime Museum’s website [ here ].

From the car park follow the gravel track to East Soar Farm (signposted East Soar Outdoor Experience) where you can get refreshments at the Walker’s Hut. Beyond the farm the footpath leads down through a field to a stone wall with crags behind. Go through the gate and turn left onto the footpath signposted to Sharp Tor/Overbecks/South Sands. Continue past Sharp Tor (where there is a compass on a plinth) and after ¼mile (450metres) look out for the memorial to the 1916 Salcombe Lifeboat Disaster on your right, It is in a clearing just past the Trig point to the left of the path.

The 1916 Salcombe Lifeboat Disaster 

On the morning of 27 October 1916, in the middle of the Great War, the small community of Salcombe suffered a terrible loss when the lifeboat William and Emma capsized on Salcombe Bar after returning from an abortive mission. The lifeboat had been called out to assist the schooner Western Lass, wrecked near Prawle Point. In spite of the furious gale that was raging and the huge waves breaking on Salcombe Bar, the crew succeeded in getting out to sea, but on reaching the wrecked schooner, found that her crew had already been rescued by the rocket apparatus team at Prawle. Battling against near hurricane force winds the crew returned for home, but on attempting to re-cross the Bar their little craft capsized, and all but two of their number – Eddie Distin and Bill Johnson – were drowned.

The full story of the disaster is told in a display in the Maritime Museum which includes fragments from the wreck, an oar and a superb model of the William and Emma. You can also download a fully illustrated account of the disaster and its aftermath from the Maritime History Resources page of the Maritime Museum’s website [ h ere].

Continue along the path and at the fork follow the signs for Overbecks where you can visit the National Trust gardens during opening times and get refreshments in the mobile café. The lane down from Overbecks will take you back to North Sands.

Salcombe Maritime Museum

The harder you search the more you will find in this friendly little museum...... A treasure trove of models, paintings, photographs and artefacts which tell the story of Salcombe’s links with ships and the sea from ancient times to the Second World War.

Come and see the artefacts from all the sites you have just visited..

Open March - October

between 10.30am &12.30pm and 2.30pm & 4.30pm

FREE ENTRY!