Waters of the Dart
Greenway is situated at one of the widest spots of the River Dart. The river here is 50ft deep in midstream even at low tide and the steeply sloping hills on either side create a natural sheltered harbour – creating an ideal passageway and safe anchorage for countless fisherman, merchants and mariners.
A couple of miles downstream is the deep-water port of Dartmouth, famous for producing skilful sailors. In medieval times, ships would set off from Dartmouth and head to Europe, where they would trade wool, tin and dried fish for wine and linen. In 1373, the writer Chaucer visited the area and later wrote of a ‘Shipman of Dartmouth’ in his Canterbury Tales.
Chaucer’s Shipman is a skilled sailor but a ruthless one, who sends his enemies ‘home by water’ – that is, makes them walk the plank or sinks their ships. He is thought to be partly based on a real man: John Hawley who combined being Mayor of Dartmouth (14 times!) with being a privateer. A privateer was a shipowner given official permission from the monarch to attack ships belonging to enemy countries. It was a way of defending England’s coasts – and a way to make money.
But there was a thin line between being a privateer and being a pirate. Hawley was frequently accused of attacking ships recklessly and keeping too much booty for himself. Even in the last year of his life, when he was nearly 60, he was accused of illegally seizing foreign ships. Despite this, he was buried in splendour in a grand church in Dartmouth.
The River Dart still produces good sailors – though hopefully they no longer make their enemies walk the plank. In 1863, the Royal Navy decided to train naval cadets on the Dart and they still do today.
The waters of the Dart also played a key role in the Second World War. Many small craft from Devon sailed to Dunkirk to assist in the rescue of the British forces in the spring of 1940, and in the latter half of the war the river was used to train commando troops to carry out secret operations. Later, in 1944, the US Coastguard took over Greenway and they were involved in the flotilla that left from Dartmouth for the D-Day landings. As pictured above, the flagship of Flotilla 10 features in an oil painting executed by one of the US sailors stationed there, and the reverse of this carries a list of the officers stationed at Greenway. Meanwhile, down the river at Kingswear, the Philips & Son shipyards were kept busy throughout the war producing and repairing military vessels.