Calstock

Calstock is a village on the western bank of the River Tamar, within the Tamar Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, 10 miles north of Plymouth and 6 miles south-west of Tavistock. The village is dominated by the 12-arch railway viaduct, 37 metres above the river, which carries the Tamar Valley Line across the Tamar. The line opened as a passenger railway in 1908.

The Tamar Valley was historically important for market gardening, fruit growing, and mining. Copper, tin and arsenic were mined around Calstock, and granite quarrying made it a busy river port, so the ruined pump houses that dot the landscape are the remains of that industry. Cotehele, a medieval National Trust manor house with original furnishings, is about a mile up the valley, and a Tamar barge, the Shamrock, is preserved at Cotehele Quay. Calstock has a railway station with services to Plymouth (about 30 minutes). The village sits right on the Cornwall-Devon border, with Gunnislake about 2 miles north.

Calstock has older layers too. Excavations on Church Hill, beside St Andrew’s Church, uncovered a Roman fort of about 170 by 160 metres, dated to around 50 or 55 CE. The Tamar is navigable past the village for about 3 miles to Morwellham Quay, and tourist boats still run from Plymouth to Cotehele in the summer months. Calstock Arts holds exhibitions and music events in the Old Chapel, and the Boot Inn in the village centre dates from 1666.