Crapstone – what’s in a name?

My sister, Grace, and her family live on Dartmoor.

Dark, brooding and mysterious are some words which are often applied to this dark, brooding and mysterious place.

So is picturesque (there's a shedload more scenes like this I could not be arsed to take any more photos of them - that's what postcards are for).

Dartmoor is probably best known for its prison...

Note the high security gate.

and ponies.

and not so well known for layabout punk sheep…

 

…and the Paperweight  Centre...

...which is home to “The Broughton Collection”.

Grace and Co live in the village of Crapstone…

…which is a fine(ish) place with a proud(ish) heritage involving the RAF and to a lesser extent the RAC.

The RAF had a base here and there is a war memorial commemorating the Great War. I suspect most of those named were navy or infantry and some were from Crapstone...

on the monument they refer to the wider area of Buckland parish:

The RAC have an advert featuring Vinnie Jones reluctant to say ‘crap’ in front of (presumably) his daughter. For what it’s worth, while I was looking for the advert, I searched for the AA... The advert was, and may still be, here.  If not there is a copy here [You will need a FLV player to play this clip – you can download one from here - Ed.]

The fount of some wisdom and not a little misinformation, Wikipedia, notes that: “The industrial hub of the town is found in the Crapstone business park, while the chief financial district is located at the banking counter within the local post office.” Reluctant as I am to dis this most worthy of undertakings, I suspect that the writer was not paying attention. It seems that the industrial park is also reluctant to speak its name:

There may of course be a second
business park in this tiny village.
If so please email me

On the topic of reluctance, the Dartmoor promotional web site http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/ does not list Crapstone. This may be because they think it is not in the Dartmoor National Park which is true. However I have stood with one foot in Crapstone and the other foot on Dartmoor without a hint of discomfort. Whereas to do this from Yelverton, Tavistock or Exeter (to name just three) would require legs several miles long - and they are listed.  

One theory is that inclusion of the word Crapstone would reduce the number of hits on search engines – which may explain why Scunthorpe is known locally as Scunny and is not such a popular tourist destination.