Crapstone

Crapstone is a village in the county of Devon. The village is located on the edge of Dartmoor and is approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) from the village of Yelverton, 9 miles (14 km) from the city of Plymouth and 5 miles (8.0 km) from Tavistock.

History

During the Second World War Crapstone was the nearest village to RAF Harrowbeer. Members of the RAF crew were housed in the nearby villages of Crapstone, Yelverton and Buckland Monachorum. The Ministry of Defence maintained a defence site in Crapstone until the 1980s. The Ministry of Defence commandeered this land in Crapstone from a local family (who had played a significant role in building the church and golf course in the neighbouring village of Yelverton) based on a "gentleman's agreement" that the land would be returned (or at least paid for) at the end of the war. The Ministry of Defence refused to honour this and after the land was cleared in the 1980s it was subsequently sold to Wimpey Developments for a substantial sum of money. The original family, although they petitioned the Ministry of Defence, received no compensation whatsoever as the Ministry of Defence claimed they had no paperwork.

In 2007 Crapstone was used as the name of the village in a television advert for the RAC. Local residents started a protest group on the social networking site Facebook complaining that the village used in the television advert was not actually Crapstone but a location using its name.

As a child, Christopher Hitchens lived for some years in the village, and noted his embarrassment at the name in his autobiography, as well as in the pages of Vanity Fair.^[1] It has frequently been noted on lists of unusual place names.^[2]

Nearby villages include:

• Yelverton, Devon
• Milton Combe, Devon
• Buckland Monachorum

References

External links

Media related to Crapstone, Devon at Wikimedia Commons Coordinates: 50°29′26″N 4°06′43″W / 50.4905°N 4.11199°W / 50.4905; -4.11199