A LONDON livery company, with records dating back to 1276, has reaffirmed its links with Dartmouth.

The 20-strong Board of the Worshipful Company of Paviors spent a long weekend at the Dart Marina Hotel.

During their visit, members and their partners travelled to Paignton by steam train and visited Sharpham Vineyard to sample the cheeses and wines and returned to Dartmouth by boat.

On Saturday they enjoyed a tour of Britannia Royal Naval College before having a formal dinner there.

Sunday morning was spent with a visit to the Dartmouth Yacht Club and an opportunity to go on board Peter Lucas’s RNLI Barnet class lifeboat, the Duke of Cornwall, which was moored alongside the DYC pontoon. They were joined at the Dartmouth Yacht Club by the crew of the RNLI Dart inshore lifeboat and Rob Clements, the lifeboat operations manager, gave a brief talk outlining the activities of the D class lifeboat locally.

The crew then gave a demonstration of the capabilities of the boat, including a ‘man overboard’ exercise.

The Worshipful Company of Paviors has supported the RNLI twice in the last five years; firstly by making a substantial donation to the RNLI lifeboats based on the Thames and later this year through a donation to the RNLI Dart branch.

The principal objective of the Paviors Company is ‘to further the craft of paving; that is the planning, design, construction, maintenance and management of all paved surfaces’.