Every Friday I send out an email that features photos from the Rupert Leach Collection, snaps taken from the personal View-Master reels of View-Master’s Director of Photography in the 1940s and 50s. These never-before-published images show alternative shots of some commercial View-Master reels and sometimes personal photos of Leach, his wife Poppy, and others.
This week’s reel keeps us in England with the caption: “Devon Trip — Plymouth, Clovelly, Totnes.” Let’s see if we can figure out what we’re looking at! I’m calling it a fishing trip, because I’m fishing for information.
Without Google Image Search, this endeavor would not be possible! The spot pictured above appears to be the Mayflower Steps in Plymouth.
This the very port where “the pilgrims” are believed to have left from England aboard the Mayflower in September of 1620 to cross the Atlantic Ocean to disembark at Plymouth Rock and settle in North America (and going on to form the USA, of course). It’s funny, I’ve spent my life hearing about Plymouth Rock but have never once thought about the exact place my country’s Founding Fathers had left England from. Pretty neat.
I found a strikingly similar photos of the Mayflower Steps in the 1950s here, along with a dark bit of history, so I have to share: This very port was used as a place to punish errant women. The medieval practice of ducking stools (you know, to punish witches and any other deviants) was carried over and used to punish women before the pilgrims ever got on their boats:
Historical records from Plymouth such as the "Widey Court Book" contain evidence of this practice happening.
An entry for the year 1599-1600 records that four pence was paid 'for halliinge the duckinge stoole to ducke the cookes wyeffe and James Coyts wyeffe '.
My understanding of that sentence once you take out all the extra 'e's is that basically someone paid four pence to use the ducking stool to duck the cook's wife and the wife of James Coyt.
It's unknown exactly what the spouses did to deserve such a punishment but it was probably for being what is referred to as a 'common scold'.
The lesser known cousin of the common cold, the common scold was a type of public nuisance.
Goodness, imagine if you could have people on social media waterboarded for being a scold? Everyone would get their turn!
Google tells me this could be Salcombe, a resort town in Devon. Perhaps! Still, looks like a great place to pretend to be Jessica Fletcher, and write murder novels and stare at the boats.
This picture confounded me because, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, this photo is of Cornwall, England. Check it out for yourself.
Isn’t it stunning how similar the linked photo is? However, I couldn’t find further corroborated evidence and videos of Cornwall on the YouTube made me doubt it.
Still, I think this might be Totnes or Clovelly. If you know, let me know!
This image is likely extras from the reel we looked at previously — the adorable village of Clovelly.
This also looks like Clovelly, and that fence appears in the previous post linked above. I also wonder if the man in all black in the bottom right corner is also in the group shot from the commercial reel of Clovelly?
This is the Church of Saint Pancras, Widecombe-in-the-Moor, Devon, England. It’s unusually large for a city of its size and it’s location isn’t in the heart of town, so locals had to hoof it for miles to go to church on Sundays.
From the Wiki:
It has received the nickname "Cathedral of the Moor" because of its 120-foot tower and relatively large capacity for such a small village. The church was originally built in the fourteenth century, in the Perpendicular (late Gothic) style, using locally quarried granite. It was enlarged over the following two centuries, partly on the proceeds of the local tin-mining trade. Inside, the ceiling is decorated with a large number of decorative roof bosses, including the tinner's emblem of a circle of three hares (known locally as the Tinners' Rabbits).
The church was badly damaged in the Great Thunderstorm of 1638, apparently struck by ball lightning. An afternoon service was taking place at the time, and the building was packed with approximately 300 worshippers. Four of them were killed, around 60 injured. According to local legend, the Great Thunderstorm was caused by the village being visited by the Devil.
As for this final photo? I don’t know where this is. But it falls back on something we’re seeing as a favorite framing of Rupert Leach’s for 3D photography: Through the window and into the world.
Not quite as juicy as last week’s find, but certainly a fun look into the past all the same.
If you made it this far you should smash that ❤️ button so I know you’re out there and following along. Thanks for reading, friends! And be sure to subscribe for new stuff every week.
The ducking stools thing was completely new to me, how barbaric! Bunch o' damn sadists in the world, I'll tell ya. :(