A band of fundraisers based around one of the most historic spots in Dartmouth – who organised the once popular Monkeytown Regatta – have finally called it a day after 36 years.

The Friends of Bayards Cove have been raising cash for good causes after the organisation was launched in the wake of the Queen's Silver Jubilee celebrations in 1977.

In that time they have raised between £15,000 and £18,000 for various charities – which has included funding a whaler for the town's regatta and a skiff for the Dartmouth Rowing Club.

The events included the popular Monkeytown Regatta which had to be axed eventually because of insurance costs, said the Friends' last secretary Lesley Hodge.

Monkeytown Regatta was first launched in 1945 immediately after the end of the Second World War but only ran for a few years before it folded. It as revived in after 1977 following the successful Queen's Silver Jubilee Bayards Cove street party.

The Monkeytown name is believed to have been derived from the sailor's tot of rum which was called a monkey.

The friends organisation now has only four members and one of them is not well, explained Lesley, so it was decided to call it a day.

The last thing the group did was hand their remaining funds to the Dart Lifeboat.

The £120, raised at last year's Friends of Bayards Cove carol service on the cove itself, was presented to lifeboat chairman Harry Escott by friends chairman Tim Otway.

Also there was Tim's wife Diane, Mrs Hodge and the last Mayor of Monkeytown, Tony Carlson.

Mr Escott said: 'What made the evening very poignant was that it signalled the closure of the Friends of Bayards after 36 years of activity on the Cove.'

Bayards Cove is famous the world over for being the spot where the Mayflower and the Speedwell, with the Pilgrim Fathers on board, first set sail for the 'new land' of America.

It gained fame more recently as the backdrop for the popular BBC Onedin Line series which was broadcast through the 1970s.

The friends group was formed with 12 members – many of whom lived on the cove or the immediate area. Today most of the Bayards Cove properties are holiday homes, said Lesley.

'The community is not the same,' she said. 'Not many people live there now. We were all children down there and a lot of us were born down there.'

See this week's Dartmouth Chronicle for more on this story