Dartmoor Characters

“I’ll be home for Christmas You can count on me Please have snow and mistletoe And presents under the tree.“ Everybody wants to be at home for Christmas where they can relax and enjoy the company of family and friends along with the seasonal food and drink. But for those …

This story takes us back to the days of the English Civil War or to be more precise 1646, to a grand house in the Teign valley called Brimble Farm which today is known as Bramble Farm. Here lived Dr. Thomas Clifford who was a wealthy man with a penchant …

Childe was a wealthy man and a keen hunter, his vast estate was at Plymstock a small village to the south of the moors. Childe was happiest riding the moor alone, come rain or shine he would roam the wastes in search of game. One winters day he had been …

The year is 1922 and the location is the sleepy moorland village of Buckland-in the-Moor. Here life slowly passes by with very little excitement and events outside the moor hold little concern. Imagine then the consternation when suddenly the Northern Ireland troubles were brought alarmingly to this quite remote moorland …

Imagine back in the days of horse transport making the journey from Okehampton to Tavistock. You may be visiting family or conducting important business. The journey will take you through Sourton, past Lydford onto Black Down, down through through Mary Tavy and on to Tavistock. Consider then that you stay …

 Here is a story about how Mrs Brown won the brush with the Dartmoor hounds. I will let her tell the story in her own inimitable way: “One day last week I says to Josiah, “If you’m goin’ down to Buckfastleigh – I knowed as he was goin’ down for …

“I have a dream…” as most of us do but usually it does not involve transforming a whole landscape. Back in the 1800’s one man’s dream was to recreate a mystical land on Dartmoor, he wanted to bring the Isle of Mona to the moor along with a fabulous grotto …

Here’s a tale with something for everyone, it has murder, highway robbery, a manhunt, a love interest and it all happened on and around Blackdown. But first to set the scene, Blackdown consists of about four square kilometres of moorland, with the old main road from Exeter to Plymouth hugging …

This story appears in a book of 1910: “I dunno if you chaps ever met my Pal, Billy Stidstone. You oughter! You’d cotton to him straight away. ‘E’s a raal good soort is Billy! ‘E’s what the papers call a Filanderpist: ‘E’s all for givin’ of ‘is things away, for …

At Moretonhampstead in the early 1800’s there lived a family called Bidder which comprised of William the father, Elizabeth the mother and three sons, William, John, and George. The family trade was that of stone masons and when George, the youngest son was born in 1806 it looked as if …