It wasn’t the first time I’d seen the whatever-it-is on the beach in front of the lighthouse, but it was the first time I’d seen all of the whatever-it-is. Perhaps as an avowed local historian/come-anorak I should’ve taken more interest earlier, writes John Silverman.

I’d thought it was just a lump of concrete at the end of a long-ish line of other broken lumps of concrete, purpose unknown; but when, due to very low sand levels, I examined it more closely it turned out to be an 8ft long, expertly dressed top-to-toe, length of granite stone. It must have cost a fair bit to have had it cut let alone transported from where...the Dartmoor quarries? Hmm.

As seems so often the case, when something is unearthed in one place it can lead to digging around nearby to see if anything else might materialise, so off I went to The Devon Record Office (aka Teign Heritage Centre) to dig out the old harbour commissioner minute books; heavy, thick tomes full of who was appointed, what meetings they attended and where and when; but among these ponderous facts can lie little nuggets, almost asides, of pure historical information.

Page one of book one begins: ‘Book of the Proceedings of the Commissioners appointed under and by virtue of an Act of Parliament passed in the sixth year of the reign of his present Majesty, King William IV’ followed by the minutes of, presumably, the very first meeting on June 28, 1836 ...and so my digging began.

On February 2, 1843, The Lamp Committee produced a report recommending the erection of a lighthouse. There followed the usual legal shenanigans until a meeting on September 12, 1844, when the go ahead was finally given.

On November 7, the minutes recorded: Mr Festing, the agent of the Duke of Somerset, having written the clerk consenting on the part of his Grace that the commissioners may take the piece of granite now lying at the New Quay for the purpose of a pedestal on which to erect a lamppost on The Den. Resolved:

That the best thanks of this meeting be tendered to his Grace through Mr Festing for this handsome present and that the clerk do communicate the same to Mr Festing accordingly.

Then on September 11, 1845: That John Baker and others be paid 11/- for removing the granite stone from the green to the back of The Den.

Now not for me to say, but bit of a coincidence granite-wise? So what was it actually used for and, more importantly, where did it go bearing in mind The Den was far larger than we observe it to be today.

It happens that in 1848 one Peter Orlando Hutchinson painted some of what he saw during his ‘Travels of Victorian England’, and one of those things was the newly-built Teignmouth lighthouse and, directly in front of this is a stone that looks, to my eye, remarkably like the one on the beach? But it’s directly in front of the lighthouse?

The minutes handily go on to record that in October 1869, due again to bad weather, Mr Hutchings stated that he had examined the foundation of the lighthouse and found that there were 8ins of land only above the concrete and the foundation was exposed to ‘imminent danger’. To cut to the chase, a 30ft concrete groyne was subsequently built to protect the lighthouse which meant they would have had to shift the granite block and where better place to shift it to than the end of the groyne? The photograph is one of my own collection and has been dated by Frith Photographic Company as circa 1874... so the date ties in neatly. Then came the vast storm of 1908 resulting in a whole heap of new sea-defences being built along the front-beach stretch.

Okay, so I’m biased. I reckon that, on balance, what’s lying on the sand is as likely as not His Lordship’s Gift. Does that make it worth the cost of salvage? I raised the matter with Cllr David Cox, a fellow local history enthusiast, and he’s looking into it with those who make such decisions, and there’s a couple of interesting options to explore, so we’ll see what we’ll see.