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| | | From Shetland to the Scilly Isles, Open Country travels the UK in search of the stories, the people and the wildlife that make our countryside such a vibrant place. Each week we visit a new area to hear how local people are growing the crops, protecting the environment, maintaining the traditions and cooking the food that makes their corner of rural Britain unique.
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|  | | Jonathan Waterer with William and Commodore, plus muckspreader on their farm in Devon
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Devon is the land of rolling hills, cream teas and rugged coastlines - a holiday paradise and the visitors come in their millions. It's a county heavily dependent on tourism for it's wealth. But have things gone too far? Is Devon becoming a theme park? Where is the line between making a living from tourism and turning into an exhibit yourself?
Devon information
Devon County Council information
Helen Mark travels from Dartmoor north to the coast in search of the real Devon. She joins Sue Goodfellow for a climb up Hay Tor, one of the granite peaks on Dartmoor. Sue is Head of Ecology and Wildlife conservation with the Dartmoor Park Authority. She explains that Dartmoor owes much of its landscape, vegetation and industry to its geology. The unyielding boulders of granite we see today started as molten rock which gradually cooled at various times and temperatures to form crystals that give it its distinctive speckled appearance.
Dartmoor facsheet: geology and landforms
At Higher Biddercott Farm, Helen visits Jonathan Waterer and his shire horses William and Commodore. The horses are great characters and popular with visitors, but Jonathan is adamant that they are worked for practical reasons. Helen takes the reins and has a go at muck spreading.
Jonathan's wife Fiona runs a B'n'B from the farm and has found that guests love to get involved, collecting eggs in the morning and meeting the horses. Without diversifying, it wouldn't be possible to farm in Devon nowadays but it is ironic that the traditional farm holiday makers seek, perhaps isn't traditional after all.
Helen continues north to the coast and meets Jeffrey Julett and Bill Cooke who had run flat-bottomed boats in and out of the bays and inlets of North Devon. Bill Cooke started out when he was 14 and remembers climbing the rigging and lugging sacks for hours a day.
The boats kept the place supplied with goods and ferried anything from coal to china clay. They were beached on the shore, their cargo unloaded and then they waited for the tide to take them off again. Gradually passenger services took over and holiday makers enjoyed trips to Ilfracombe from Lee. The boats finally stopped in 1996, when new rules following disasters such as the Herald of Free Enterprise made passenger trips unfeasible. Bill and Jeffrey think it's a shame the industry has gone because for hundreds of years people have looked to the sea for a living and this is ever less possible in Devon today.
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