Galmpton Creek  PANORAMIC VIEW 122KB         GREENWAY FERRY

The Creek is a small bay on a bend in the River Dart known as Dittisham Lake. It has a beach which is not very suitable for swimming (although the water is clean) but it is a good place for launching small river craft, fishing, watching wildlife or just sight seeing! Fishing is allowed by boat but the fish (which can often be Bass) must be returned immediately although you can keep them if you fish from the river side.

 Walking     Click here to see John's map showing walks.

There is a two and a half mile walk you can take from Galmpton village centre through some of the largest trees in the village just before you reach the Creek.

You can continue the walk up a bridle path taking in stunning views of this part of the Dart Valley before eventually returning to the village along Greenway Road. When you get to the Creek you will also see Limestone Quarries, an area heavily quarried since Tudor times. Stone was used for building ships ballast and for producing lime in local limekilns, evidence of which can be seen from the road leading to the Creek.

 Boatyards

This old Brixham sailing boat (Right) was probably built at a Galmpton Creek boatyard in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century and is now owned by a company in Brixham which gives people the chance to experience sailing as it used to be! These boatyards were sited both sides of the Creek and were responsible for building more than 300 Brixham sailing trawlers over 150 years. Sand dredged from the Dart was also landed at the sand quay and you can still see the old weighbridge in position in front of the MDL office.

 WORLD WAR II    (information courtesy of www.dittisham.org.uk)

The advent of the Second World War brought change to this area, as it did universally. The boatyards at Galmpton were pressed into service to produce rapid shipbuilding programmes for the war effort. Volunteers and little boats from the Dart joined in the miracle of the Dunkirk rescue in 1940.

American service personnel began to arrive in the area in ever-increasing numbers in 1943, for the build-up to the invasion of Normandy. South Devon became a vast army camp, with soldiers bivouacked in the surrounding countryside and the narrow lanes choked with convoys of lorries, tanks and jeeps. The river again played its part in providing safe anchorage for large numbers of the invasion landing craft which crowded the Dart. At the boatyards in the Creek, Motor Launches and Motor Torpedo Boats were built and repaired and on June 5th, 1944, 485 landing craft and support vessels, left the Dart to join with thousands of others to carry out the greatest amphibious landing in history

GALMPTON FARM

The main barn was said to be the longest in the country in its time and the American servicemen held dances here prior to D Day although It has now been converted to housing

ORCHARDS

Until just after World War ll the areas between the buildings of the village near Stoke Gabriel road consisted of apple orchards and during the war a German pilot from an Me109 fighter plane parachuted into the orchard, having been shot down by guns positioned on the Warborough. An ARP officer based at the Village Institute took him prisoner and gave him a cup of tea!

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