Historic Dartmoor

  On the 1st of March 1950 the Western Morning News carried the following headline – “Ancient Devon cross found broken and buried beside farm gate.” and this was referring to the discovery of an important relic of Dartmoor’s history. As with many of the old stone crosses which once …

Down a small and narrow lane which leads off  Beetor Cross is the small farm called Hele and it is this that lends its name to an ancient wayside cross and also a crossroads some 600 metres to the north. The place-name ‘Hele’ is a common one in Devon and …

If you look at the two maps below you can see on the earlier version a farm called Liapa or sometimes locally it was referred to as Leeper. You can also see that on the modern version the farm is now called Moor Gate. When and why the name was …

The story of Great Week Consols Tin Mine is one of intrigue and may well be a case of “All that glitters is not gold.” According to the Cultural Heritage Desk Based Assessment of Chagford the first mine may well date back to medieval times? In relation to medieval tinning …

 Please note access to the mine and its surrounds are by prior appointment only as the land is privately owned. The chosen route for our first full day’s walk during the Easter break was from Trenchaford Reservoir, down past Bullaton Farm and then onto the Kelly Mine via the steep …

The ‘legendary’ Postbridge Clapper has got to be one of  the top three ‘hotspots’ on Dartmoor. How many people that have visited the moor have not got either a photo or a postcard of the old bridge? Visit Postbridge on any summer’s day and see the buses piling into the …

Anybody who has read the book or watched the film of, ‘The Name of the Rose’ will not be surprised at anything medieval monks got up to. Dartmoor has its own version in the, ‘Mad Monk of Gidleigh’, well to be exact, ‘The Mad Monk of Haldon’ but as the …

About half a mile to the south east of Sheepstor lies the Yellowmead Stone Circle or to be precise ‘Circles’ because there are in fact four of them. Butler (1994, p.74) describes the rings as ‘fourfold circles‘ although other authors have referred to them as ‘concentric circles’, English Heritage being …

‘Lonely there, betwixt moor and sky, Where great grey clouds go drifting by, And the peewit utters her plaintive cry, The Windy Post stands silently.’ To the north west of Feather Tor stands an ancient and rugged granite cross known as either the Beckamoor Cross or more romantically the Windy …

As you drive along the A386 between Okehampton and Tavistock you may notice a cross sited on a distant tor upon the skyline, this is ‘Widgery’s Cross’ or the ‘Jubilee Cross’. For 118 years the granite cross has stood looking over the western expanse of moor. The cross was erected …