Normally at this time of year a we along with a group of friends and neighbours book a suitable local venue for a pre-Christmas dinner but this year for one reason or another this was not on the menu. But hey, can’t let the festive season pass without some kind …

  “From Okehampton to Belstone, over Cawsand, White Hill, Will Tor, Taw Head to Cranmere, from thence to Fur Tor, continuing down the Tavy, past Watern Hill to Tavy Cleave, then returning via Hammacombe or Ammacombe Hill, Sandy Ford, High Wilhags, Yes Tor, Black Down, and Okehampton Park. This is …

  It’s a midwinter’s day in 1886 and a party of people left Plymouth’s Millbay Station for a day trip to explore the wilds of Dartmoor. What they saw on that journey in many respects would be a lot different to what can be witnessed today. For starters it would …

  Here is a true story worthy of a West End play, it involves a prison chaplain, a burglar armed with a knife, a shotgun and an amputated arm. The scene is large granite Victorian house located near to the church at Princetown. It’s a dark March night when all …

  Over the last few centuries Dartmoor has many eminent topographical writers who have passed down their knowledge and experience to us today. However, there are some authors who never managed to get their work and experiences published for the wider audiences. What they did manage to do is get …

You are driving over the B3212 road by Shapley Common, its a crisp autumn day, the heather is in full bloom casting a purple hue over the hazy moorland and all of a sudden in the middle of the road you see a shaggy looking cow. Somewhere beneath its furry …

Dinna Clerks, AKA Dinah Clerk – who or more technically what are they? In all reality nothing to get too excited about, they are in fact the names of three fields belonging to or once belonged to West Shallowford which lies to the south-west of Widecombe-in-the-Moor. As can be seen …

  “The best known of many prehistoric settlements on Dartmoor, Grimspound dates from the late Bronze Age (about 1450–700 BC). The remains of 24 stone roundhouses survive here, within a massive boundary wall about 150 metres in diameter.” – English Heritage. There can be no question that Grimspound is one …

“Rolling featureless in a great, rounded mass on the western frontiers of Dartmoor; marked only by the occasional pit or mound, where man has burrowed without success for metal; its mighty back close-coated in ling and heath and the lesser whin, there heaves up Gibbet Hill.” Eden Phillpotts, Gibbet Hill, …

  Birch Cleave Wood (SX 826 826), Birch Down (SX 816 873), Birch Ellers Mine (SX 826 871), Birch Tree Farm (SX 8225 8733), Birch Pool (SX 7332 6811) Birch Tor (SX 687 814), Birchanger Cross (SX 7728 7557), Birch Wood ( SX 705 673),  and Birchey Lake (SX 6199 …