oldexeterinnDartmoor is a huge burial ground for French & Amercian Prisoners of War
Thousands of captured Frenchmen were imprisoned in Devon during the Napoleonic wars which, off and on, ran between 1803 and 1815. Eleven thousand of them died here during their incarceration and are buried in mass graves at Dartmoor prison in Princetown which they helped construct. The prison was designed as an alternative to housing French prisoners on hulks moored in naval bases such as Plymouth and Dartmouth (which some bright spark at the Admiralty observed was something of a security risk).
When the French were brought ashore at Plymouth, the officers and crew were separated. Many of the ordinary crew members were hanged (the building in which this occurred still exists). The officers were simply named ‘French’. Ashburton became an open prison for the French officers who were allowed to live quite normal lives here but with strict rules of not going beyond certain boundaries. Many of the prisoners never returned to France after the war. Today, on Dartmoor, there are many families with the surname ‘French’.
Lots of little items have been discovered in the eaves of the roof at the Old Exeter Inn. A pair of tiny shoes (probably children’s shoes), small glass bottle, a marble, a clay pipe, a metal clasp, a pot with date on it and a small dish. The tradition of placing personal effects in the rafters (or even plastering them into the walls), especially in Europe has a strong link with superstition. It is thought that by concealing certain items in a building’s structure, it was hoped that they would act as magical charms to protect the occupants against dark and evil influences. It is possible that French POWs were living in the inn, and it is known there was a French Lodge of the Freemasons that met at the at the Old Exeter Inn.
The French left their mark, but not in the way Napoleon intended
The pains of war were not exclusively felt by the French or the British. The Americans also lost men at this time. Many of their sailors were captured during the 1812 American war and two hundred and seventy one are buried at the prison on Dartmoor.
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