Historic Dartmoor

Imagine a cold, dank winter’s day, there is a sad, little procession winding it’s way up Dartmeet Hill, they are carrying a shrouded corpse. The sound of mournful singing can be heard echoing across the misty moor, every now and again the dirge is interrupted by desperate weeping and wailing. …

There are around 18 locations that have the place-name element  ‘castle’ attached to them, of these there is only Castle Drogo, Gidleigh Castle, Lydford Castle and Okehampton Castle that come close to resembling a fortified structure of the historic age. True there are several Iron Age hillforts that are called …

I would think that Nun’s Cross, or to give its correct name, Siward’s Cross must be about the best known of Dartmoor’s granite crosses. It can be classified as a ‘wayside cross’ as it marks the old monastic Maltern Way amongst other things. It is certainly the largest of the …

On the brow of Hand Hill which overlooks Nun’s Cross and Fox Tor Mires is a large triangular boulder upon which jauntily sits what has become known as “The Smallest Cross on Dartmoor”. In very recent times is seems to have become very popular both on the web and in …

Imagine walking the moor on a hot, balmy day, salty beads of sweat start to trickle into your eyes making them sting. Overhead a buzzard lazily floats on the warm therms, slowly spiralling up into the sky with a screel of delight. You decide to have a rest on a …

Teetering on the western flank of Ter Hill is the corner of an newtake belonging to the old Foxtor Farm, here the gateway overlooks the infamous Foxtor Mires and Swincombe Valley. A few feet away from the gateway stands an old granite cross which is one of the line of …

“Back to the sunset bound of Lyonesse– A land of old upheaven from the abyss By fire, to sink into the abyss again; Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt…“. The above lines are how Tennyson described the legendary land of Lyonesse that sunk beneath the waves somewhere off the coast …

This was a difficult topic to categorise as the St. Michael’s line is or was not an actual track or boundary but if you believe in energy lines then it is a real path that runs across the northern end of the moor. Ley lines and energy paths initially seemed …

Zebediah Torre was a journeyman who lived in a small hovel near Buckland. Every week he and his pony would trudge the ancient track called ‘The Abbot’s Way’ to Princetown and then cut across on the old Ashburton to Tavistock path, which led him to the local market at Tavistock. …

The Merrivale ceremonial complex is probably one of the second most important ritual landscapes on Dartmoor. The inquiring mind will find many references to it in many books. But they are all brief mentions, which leaves the reader thirsting for more knowledge. This is an attempt to bring all those …