Celebrating 71 years
Date: A mid-april Sunday. Location: Pentillie Castle Estate, Cornwall. Dress: Fleeces and thermals. Equipment: 4x4 (Defender preferred!)
1400 off-road enthusiasts turn up for the fourth Defender day at Cornwall’s Pentillie Castle
IN THE westernmost county in the country, 2000 rolling Cornish acres threw open their gates for the fourth Defender Day, “celebrating the 71st year since ‘proper’ Land Rovers were first made”. Those were the words of Ted Coryton, Pentillie Castle and Land Rover owner! Every marque of Land Rover turned up for the event from gleaming, just-purchased Discoverys to a pair of equally spotless Series Is, and all models in between, plus a few masquerading oriental interlopers.
Grey clouds, single-figure temperatures and a chill breeze from Norway kept parkas zipped up around the manicured Pentillie Castle grounds. Along the rutted, switchback course, under tall pines scratching a sunless sky, almost 1400 off-road enthusiasts were warmed by elevated panoramic glimpses of the meandering Tamar, holding back Devon.
Well over 200 vehicles made up the invasion, all intent on surviving just under four miles of ‘take a run at it’ steep dirt tracks, serious back-up-opposite-lock hairpins, and a jointjarring obstacle of 12 semi-buried granite monoliths (aptly names the Sleeper Challenge). This brought gears meshing back down ahead of the bale-blocked water splash and a snaking, 100 metre rock-riven stream bed, scraping silencers and muddying Bodmin waters.
For most helmsmen, a Landy was clearly part of everyday life. For others, it was a family day out – fathers capably negotiating slippery boulders with excited sons clutching hand straps as maternal co-drivers offered occasional encouragement (and some drove!). In the back, dozing dogs, missing a Sunday walk, sprawled in cages, unfazed by spinning wheels up vertical inclines on some of the more agricultural models. “We were only going to Tesco!” called
out one wheel-gripping dad, with a grin.
Some 30 voluntary marshals kept everything safe and legal (they got to drive later), and roving paramedics from nearby Launceston were never far away. All was overseen by Neal Wilkinson, coordinator of the chosen event charity Devon & Cornwall 4x4 Response, more used to ferrying snowbound medical staff to hospital workplaces. Neal commented: “Sometimes herding cats is easier than this, but the day is going real well!”
As vintage Series IIIS bucked and bumped up red-dirt wheel-troughs, back in the packed Castle dining room, spellbound audiences relived three marathon ‘trips of a lifetime’. On the hour, serious adventurers audio-visually recounted Land Rover epics, including from the UK to the Arctic Circle, from Cape Horn through the Americas to Alaska’s Beaufort Sea and, closer to home, across the Alps and trans-europe, this time in a 130 Defender campervan.
Enthused by all that adventure, emerging back onto the Castle lawn, 55 understated varied vehicles brought those lectures to life (including that campervan). Ever-present were the experienced Dartmoor Search and Rescue Tavistock 110 Team, and, as a Camel Trophy veteran myself, a dusty Sandglow 1985 support Defender 110 caught my eye, recently rescued from storage oblivion. Nearby, John Taylor’s globe-circling Series IIA, with spots, roo bars and four corner-mounted jerrycans, revealed a five year, 100,000 mile odyssey that evoked images of the Blue Mosque, Taj Mahal, Ayers Rock, the Panama Canal, New York’s World Trade twin towers and a homecoming in the hold of the QE2, no less. Shortly, they will depart for France and Spain and a reunion linked to the Patton: Lust for Glory movie in which John was an extra during their sojourn. In contrast, a very exclusive, mint Bowler V8 Raid Bulldog with 5.0-litre
supercharged capability (and an Aston Martin price tag to match) stood very proudly and capably opposite. And not far away, occasional sunlight emphasised a gleaming, galvanised Shielder chassis of a once-born 1997 Defender 300Tdi baring all, proclaiming the recent establishment of Hittisleighbased rebuild company, Dartmoor 4x4 Ltd. And, keeping things Devon, was a head-turning Ottery St Mary farrier’s Defender with, uniquely, an ingenious 110 workshop trailer from a Defender bodyshell, that converts to a demountable sleeping unit! Even tomorrow’s junior drivers had a mini Toylander course to compete on, and radio-controlled offroaders to marvel at.
All too soon, it was 4.00 pm and departing marshalls’ Defenders were convoying for their own spin on the worn trails. In a week’s time, Pentillie’s calendar hosts a slightly more sedate event as horsepower gives way to horse power. The East Cornwall Riding Club trek the same woodland slopes with some of those same Defenders hauling Ifor Williams horse boxes, and, of course, they’ll all return next year on March 29 for Pentillie Castle’s fifth, fast-growing Defender Day!
Hope to see some of you there.
“1400 off-road enthusiasts were warmed by panoramic glimpses of a meandering Tamar”