Origins
The first known owners of the Fishery were the Abbots of Tavistock, who owned it until the dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry the VIIIth There is still a pool called Abbots on the Beat above our water. Thereafter, it belonged to the Duchy of Cornwall.
1791-1929
It is known that in 1791 it was let to the Earl of Mount Edgecombe for his life at a rent of £11-10-6 per annum. In 1796 the Tamar Manure Navigation Co was set up by act of parliament to make a Navigation from Morwellham Quay to Tamerton Bridge, with a cut from Polson Bridge near Launceston to join up with the proposed Bude Canal. The cost of the proposed works was £81,000. Since it was feared that the Fishery would be damaged, under the Act the Tamar Manure Navigation Co had to pay the Earl of Mount Edgecombe £ 200 per annum during his tenure of the lease, and the thereafter would take over the tenure of the lease for the same sum “forever”. The only construction that took place was a short stretch of canal and lock gates at Gunnislake weir done in 1801, making the river navigable up to near Blanchdown . The rest of the grandiose scheme was abandoned. The canal was in use up until 1929.
19th Century
During the 19th century the valley on either side of the Tamar was the center of an enormous mining activity, Tin, Wolfram, Copper, and Arsenic being them principle minerals, although there was some silver, The river virtually ceased to be a salmon fishery. The mining industry had all but collapsed by the end of the 19th century, and in due course the Dukes of Bedford became the tenant of the Duchy of Cornwall for the fishery, buying it in the 1930s. It is largely due to them that the river has become the fine fishery that it is today. The river was purchased from the Bedford estates in 1959 by the late John Walton, and by the Club in 1976. So, in the last five hundred years or so it has only changed hands four times.
Officers and Directors
Vice President
Lady Kitson OBE DL
Directors
Peter Hodgson CBE DL (Chairman and Secretary)
Sir Richard Dearlove KCMG OBE
Louis Oliver
Mike Symons
Steve Symons (Fisheries Director)
Robert Unsworth
Anthony Wareham
Company Secretary
Peter Hodgson
Manaton, Dunheved Road, Launceston, Cornwall, PL15 9JE
01566 772880
07796951253
Fishing Co-ordinator
Mrs. Sarah Tetley
Landue Barton House, Lezan, Launceston, Cornwall, PL15 9NN
01566 775908
07974 569053
River Warden
John Sleep
Southview, Kingswood Road, Gunnislake, PL18 9DF
Tel: 07713 468774
