Weekly round-up: Stories you may have missed
BBCA 70-year-old can of beef dripping sold for hundreds of pounds at auction, Great Western Railway unveiled a statue of a mythical Mermaid and an old toll booth recycled by a football club are among the stories from the South West this week.
We have selected some stories you may have missed from the region.
Charity opens £300,000 'hogspital' rescue centre
A new and improved hedgehog rescue centre has opened, allowing staff to care for more prickly animals.
Director Katy South said Prickles & Paws Hedgehog Rescue in Newquay, Cornwall, used to operate from her mum's back garden.
The new £300,000 centre at Carnanton means the charity can help more hedgehogs, up to 1,400 each year.
She said demand had grown and the charity now takes in hedgehogs from Cornwall and Devon.
"We never want to turn away a hedgehog. We always want to be able to accommodate and make space and this new building is going to allow us to do that," she said.
Game piece from 1940s found on beach litter pick
A plastic toy believed to be about 80 years old has been found during a beach clean in Cornwall.
The small green lion, thought to be from a 1940s board game, was discovered by 14‑year‑old Leila while she was sorting through litter on the north Cornwall coast.
Leila was volunteering with Beach Guardian, a Cornwall Community Interest Company, as part of her Duke of Edinburgh Award.
She said the team researched the playing piece and learned it was from a board game called The Lion and the Mouse, which was last made in 1946.
GWR unveils mythical statue at St Ives station
Great Western Railway (GWR) has unveiled a statue of the mythical Mermaid of Zennor at St Ives train station.
The temporary sculpture was one of five placed around the GWR network to encourage families to explore the landscapes that inspired the region's myths and legends.
GWR also published a new book in its Legend Land series, titled Line to Legend Land, featuring a reissue of 11 myths and a new chapter written by former Poet Laureate Sir Michael Morpurgo.
GWR spokesperson Paul Gentleman said the statues would remain in place for several weeks to encourage people to get out, discover the countryside, and learn where the stories originally came from.
Beef dripping from first Everest summit auctioned
A tin of beef dripping taken on the first successful Mount Everest expedition was sold at auction.
The can of Colonial Beef Dripping travelled on the 1953 climb with Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first confirmed people to reach the summit of the world's highest mountain.
The 70‑year‑old tin, along with a letter from E. M. Elliot explaining that it came from the home of mountaineer Mike Westmacott from Torquay, sold for £500 at Bearnes Hampton Auctioneers in Exeter.
Brian Goodison-Blanks, from the auctioneers, said it had a "unique history".
Businessman spends £300,000 to protect clifftop bar
A businessman is spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on a seawall to protect his clifftop restaurant and bar on the north Devon coast.
Rob Braddick, owner of the Pier House in Westward Ho!, said it was time to "grasp the nettle" before it was too late.
Parts of the cliff near his business had already been badly eroded, and seawater had previously flooded the amusement arcade below.
Braddick said he had been planning the 57m (187ft) flood defence for years and needed permission from Natural England, the Environment Agency and Torridge District Council before work began at Christmas.
Toll booth recycled to preserve a 'piece of history'
An old toll booth was given a new lease of life after a football club stepped in to keep a piece of local history in the community.
The booth was donated by Tamar Crossings to Saltash United Football Club, which planned to refurbish it and use it as a new ticket office.
Tamar Crossings said the club already had one of the older‑style bridge booths from the last major upgrade about 20 years earlier, which inspired the idea of bringing the two booths "together once again."
Steve Rimmer, the bridge's engineering manager, said donating the booth to the club helped "preserve a small piece of Tamar Bridge history".
