Qualla: Lustleigh https://qualla.com/lustleigh en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:11 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/r/lustleigh-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Lustleigh https://qualla.com/lustleigh Lustleigh: Introduction https://qualla.com/lustleigh/ Photo credit Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 4.0. There is a granite throne in the village orchard. Every year on the first Saturday in May, a girl is crowned May Queen on it, and her name is added to the rock where every other May Queen since 1954 is inscribed. An older rock, on a hillside above Greyland, carries the names of all the May Queens from 1905 to the start of the Second World War. In May 2000 they unveiled a new throne, cut from granite at Blackingstone Quarry, designed by Doug Cooper and carved by Warren Pappas. It is inscribed simply with the Roman numerals MM. Lustleigh, population 579, holds its traditions in granite because granite outlasts almost everything else.

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Image: Nilfanion | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/r/lustleigh-wp/gbvr-lustleigh-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Lustleigh: Luvesta's Clearing https://qualla.com/lustleigh/ Photo credit Derek Harper, CC BY-SA 2.0. The name comes from Old English. Legh or leigh means a clearing in a wood. The first part is a person's name, and scholars are not sure which. Possibly Luvesta, the "dearest one" in Middle English, a surname recorded at Ermington in 1333. Possibly Leofgiest, an Old English name. ...

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Image: Derek Harper | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/r/lustleigh-wp/gbvr-lustleigh-luvestas-clearing.mp3 0:06 2 full Lustleigh: The Most Expensive Village https://qualla.com/lustleigh/ Photo credit Owain.davies, CC BY 3.0. Various publications have called Lustleigh the prettiest village in Britain. The Daily Telegraph put it on a list of "30 greatest villages, all untouched by mass tourism." The Times listed it among the twenty best villages in Britain. MyLondon called it one of the prettiest villa...

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Image: Owain.davies | CC BY 3.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/r/lustleigh-wp/gbvr-lustleigh-the-most-expensive-village.mp3 0:06 3 full Lustleigh: The Railway That Came and Went https://qualla.com/lustleigh/ Photo credit Rosser1954 at English Wikipedia, Public domain. From 1866 to 1959 the village had a railway. The Moretonhampstead and South Devon Railway branch line ran past Lustleigh railway station, bringing summer tourists, sending farm produce out, supplying the village pub and the Wray Valley nurseries. Gatehouse Farm, conveniently plac...

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Image: Rosser1954 at English Wikipedia | Public domain

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/r/lustleigh-wp/gbvr-lustleigh-the-railway-that-came-and-went.mp3 0:06 4 full Lustleigh: Cecil Torr Revives the May https://qualla.com/lustleigh/ Photo credit Owain.davies, CC BY 3.0. By 1905 the Lustleigh May Day had lapsed - no one was sure for how long, no one was sure if it had ever existed in quite the form being claimed. Cecil Torr revived it. Torr was the village antiquarian, author of "Small Talk at Wreyland" (three series, 1918-1923), a writer whose t...

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Image: Owain.davies | CC BY 3.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/r/lustleigh-wp/gbvr-lustleigh-cecil-torr-revives-the-may.mp3 0:06 5 full Lustleigh: An Aging Village https://qualla.com/lustleigh/ Photo credit Derek Harper, CC BY-SA 2.0. Lustleigh's parish population peaked at 679 in 1951 and has declined ever since: 553 in 2011, 579 in 2021. The wider Moretonhampstead, Lustleigh and East Dartmoor district has a median age of 55, and nearly a third of residents are over 65 - three times the national average. Less...

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Image: Derek Harper | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/r/lustleigh-wp/gbvr-lustleigh-an-aging-village.mp3 0:06 6 full