WEST Devon residents are being asked for their help in sourcing information and images of Burrator Reservoir and the old Yelverton to Princetown railway line as part of a virtual project.

Professor Robert Stone, based in Birmingham, started the virtual project with his Human Interface Technologies (HIT) team as a piece of psychological research sponsored by the ministry of Defence.

Mr Stone is investigating whether they can achieve the same relaxing and health-promoting effects by exposing people in hospitals, care homes and other similar places to virtual reality reconstructions of attractive and peaceful areas, as has been shown when exposing people to real world scenes.

He said: 'We are currently recreating two areas for this project. One is based on the Wembury Bay area and the other is Burrator.'

Mr Stone said while researching and surveying the Burrator area, they came across part of the old Yelverton to Princetown railway line, which has been well described in a number of publications and videos.

'Artefacts at the old Burrator and Sheepstor Halt still exist — steps, kissing gates, shelter foundation — but not much else.

'So we decided to extend the work for the MoD and to include some examples of Virtual Heritage, just to show how these virtual worlds can be extended and re-used for a range of applications.

'In addition to the old railway line, we have also been discovering other sites and artefacts around the reservoir, such as the remains of Longstone Manor, old explosive stores, Devonport Leat and the anchor points for the suspension bridge, temporarily put in place when the reservoir capacity was increased in the early 1920s.'

Mr Stone said he would like to hear from anyone in the Tavistock, Princetown, Sheepstor and Yelverton areas who could help source additional information and images relating to the Yennadon Down and Burrator and Sheepstor Halt areas of the Yelverton to Princetown railway.

The location of signals, platelayers' huts and halt details, the old Burrator Suspension Bridge, Devonport Leat, the submerged parts and dwellings of Burrator, such as what it looked like before the flooding, or images of what was exposed during droughts would all be useful. Mr Stone is especially interested in Longstone Manor and farm.

He said: 'No-one seems to know what it actually looked like, from ages gone by and just prior to the flooding at Burrator — there must be some images somewhere!

'There are a few images relating to these items available on the web and in old books, but the assets really are few and far between and tend to be repeated across many of the publications.

'So we're hoping that local folk may have unique collections or archives that would help us make the virtual recreation accurate and informative.

'I understand there are plans afoot to seek Lottery funding to develop educational packages relating to Burrator past and present, and anything we do would, no doubt, help immensely with this aspiration.'

Anyone with any information or images that could help Mr Stone and his team can contact him on 01214 147395, email [email protected]">[email protected] or [email protected]">[email protected]