Warfleet Creek

What's in A Name - Warfleet Creek

If you have gone on a cruise down the Dart with a commentary in the last half century, the chances are that you have heard a statement like:

‘And on your right is Warfleet Creek, so named because it was where the ships from Dartmouth sheltered before heading out on the 2nd and 3rd Crusades’.

On a cruise where you would hear that the high tide line was tidied up by ferry men out of work during the summer and the chimneys on the houses were crooked because the men building them were drinking cider, it seems that this is a good, solid hard and fast historical fact.

It is, in fact completely wrong.

It became one of the main planks of the commentaries given by the river’s boat trips – and, to be fair you need a big imagination to fill a three-hour river cruise with witty, interesting and quite often true facts. A big, solid and altogether plausible name associated with some of the town’s most famous events could never, and possibly should never, be passed up.

But unfortunately the story just isn’t true.

Though the source of the name is not completely certain, the last part of the name ‘Fleet’ comes from the Anglo-Saxon ‘fleot’ meaning an ‘estuary or tidal creek’.

So Warfleet Creek actually means ‘War-Creek Creek’.

The ‘War’ is more difficult – most early spellings of the place put it as ‘Wal-‘ or ‘Wel-‘ which means that many believe the original place was known as ‘Weala-Fleot’ or ‘The Creek of the Britons’.

The Britons were a tribe which dominated much of the British Isles before the coming of the Anglo Saxons and later the Romans – and whose languages and traditions live on in Cornish, Welsh and the Bretons of Brittany.

There are other possible meanings – looking at an Anglo–Saxon dictionary, it’s easy to see ‘Wel’ or ‘Wal’ could be related to ‘wæl’ which means slaughter or carnage, so maybe the Creek was the scene of a bloody battle. Frankly we will never know – which is exactly why the tour guides on the river have been able to make it up.

Perhaps the name was slowly referred to as Warfleet because of the crusades – they were certainly very dramatic episodes in Dartmouth’s history. In 1147 the Second Crusade saw 164 ships massing in the harbour, many using the Creek as an anchorage.

164 masts – the familiar shaped ships known as ‘Cogs’ which had ‘Castles’ at either end to allow the seamen to shelter during sea battles – must have been an impressive sight. The site was chosen as the massing point because of the abundance of skilled craftsmen in the port to repair the ships and help prepare the Knights. It was also the perfect harbour to keep such a precious fleet – and the men and horses it held – safe.

Forty three years later, 37 ships left to join the Third Crusade, on behalf of Richard the Lionheart, and perhaps from then on the Creek was known as the place where‘fleets‘ lay.

After this the town began its long history as a base for ‘Privateers’ thanks to brigands...sorry, thanks to upstanding and responsible members of the community like John Hauley, who had as many fights with his own king as he did with Breton sailors in the channel. The large natural harbour of Dartmouth, the largest in England, meant that it would always attract those with large ships seeking a safe harbour – and the craftsmen Dartmouth had been famous for since the Norman invasion made it an easy choice to lay up, often using the Creek.

Dartmouth has, through all of its history, been involved in some of the world’s most dramatic and influential events. Warfleet Creek – or Wel-Fleot, or Waela-fleot – has been at the heart of this, from the Crusades through to the iconic scenes at D-Day, when Dartmouth played its part in the largest invasion from the sea the world has ever known.

The tour guides on the river cruises are always entertaining and they leave their visitors in no doubt of the importance of Dartmouth and its historical debt to the sea. If the stories of Warfleet – all of them, remember, true EXCEPT the fact they gave it the name – helped to send visitors away impressed and touched, who are we to criticise. 

For map & directions, CLICK HERE.

First published July 2011 By the Dart