Ford at the bottom of Aller Hill, looking upstream towards Aller Farm.
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The Aller Brook rises on the slopes of Little Haldon, near Dawlish, Devon. It is fed by two small catchment valleys at Smallacombe and another tributary at Lidwell, and runs eastwards for about two and a quarter miles along a beautiful, secluded valley. The name Aller comes from the Old English word ‘alor’, meaning alder tree. Aerial photography of the Aller Valley has revealed a sub-rectangular enclosure, south of the stream, some 50m by 40m suggesting a family farmstead with a timber house built within an enclosure. This was a common type of farmstead in the South-West in the Iron Age, the Roman and the post-Roman periods. Hidden from the coast by the ridge of Oak Hill and protected by from the sea by the marshy inlet of Dawlish Water, the valley offered shelter from the Viking war-bands which sailed up the Teign and the Exe in 1001, burning down Kingsteignton and attacking Exeter.
The manor of ‘Douelis’ is mentioned in the Domesday book and a grant of 1050 mentions Southwood as being one of the first farms. Aller Farm is recorded on a Lay Subsidy Roll in 1332 and documents refer to it as ‘the Barton of Aller’. It seems likely that there was once a mill there and traces of what appears to be a leat have been traced along the bottom of a hedge leading up to Southwood Farm.
The view downstream from Aller Ford
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The Aller Brook powered two mills in the town of Dawlish; Town Mill in Church Street (Manor or Upper Mill), and Strand Mill (Torbay or Lower Mill) in what is now Brunswick Place. Town Mill was demolished in the 1970’s and flats occupy the site, but Strand Mill still has a working water wheel and is now a restaurant.
