South Brent/ Dean Prior – BM INSIDE Avon Dam

A very rare opportunity by South West Water grants access to the underneath of Avon Dam, which was built in 1957 to provide drinking water for the South Hams. Inside the dam a boundary marker (not a stone) had been erected in the tunnel for South Brent and Dean Prior, as prior to the dam’s construction the boundary between the two parishes was the natural River Avon (now submerged).

Acknowledgement: These photos were kindly supplied by Fiona Rothwell, as well as the NGR, during Beating the Bounds of South Brent in 2023 where special permission to visit was facilitated.

Brockhill Water or Stream Foot

Prior to the damming of the River Avon, Brockhill Foot would have been at the river and not the reservoir. The damming of the valley here has hidden numerous prehistoric antiquities which can only be viewed at very low water levels.

Brockhill Foot (usually submerged) Blowing House

Now submerged within Avon Dam Reservoir, this blowing house is situated at Brockhill Foot. NGR is an estimate.

Eric Hemery (1983) writes: “Brockhill Foot lies near; above it on the submerged left bank, is a fine blowing-house which I photographed on 24th May 1955. It had massive walls, and its dimensions, 32 1/2 feet by seventeen feet, were suggestive of its use well into the late blowing-house era of the seventeenth century.

Reference:

  • Hemery, E. (1983): High Dartmoor – Land and People