Sitting on my league two shelf of Dartmoor books is a forlorn and rapidly disintegrating red book, its spine slowly rotting away. The only redeeming feature about it is the golden engraved picture of Spinster’s Rock on its cover. Inside the first page, in fading ink, are the words; “Dr. …

On a rather upbeat note for a change here is a verse/song that comes from Sabine Baring Gould’s – ‘A Book of the West’. As can be seen there is no mention of the dreary aspects of Dartmoor. Here are the thoughts of a true Dartmoor lover laid out in …

Just before his death, the author William Crossing compiled a book of Dartmoor poems and amongst these was ‘The Song of the Dartmoor Men’. Vur good red gold, King John, we’m told, Sot all broad Devon free Vrom the forest laws, ‘cept Dartymoor, But made it plain to see, That …

SIMON THORN   Old Simon Thorn was a Devonian, bred and born, And Work’d in his master’s fields all day from early morn; A real good man was Simon, truthful in deed and word, And through Life’s many sorrows, as blithesome as a bird.     My lot in this …

Dartmoor is criss-crossed by many ancient tracks and paths which have been used by various travellers for centuries, these varied from a couple of miles to long slogs of twenty plus miles. One such track was the ‘Mariner’s Way‘ which ran from Bideford in north Devon to Dartmouth in south …

According to the Oxford English Dictionaries the definition of the word ‘inspiration‘ is; “the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative“. There are a few landscape photographers that have the talent to give inspiration through their pictures and Russell Stewart Stone is …

Among the great and the good in the world of Dartmoor artists one would be remiss not to mention R. D. Sherrin alongside such men as F. J. Widgery, C. E. Brittan and T. Rowden. Not a lot is known about this artist although he was a prolific painter of …

Take a combination of skill, passion and inspiration and you have the ingredients for a talented artist, when that inspiration comes from the Dartmoor landscape, its mysterious legends and places, then you have Rachel Jennings the textile and mixed media artist. In fact the above statement is far too simplistic …

“Granite, a tough composite of quartz, feldspar and mica, is the stuff of Dartmoor, the most formidable of the five granite bosses punctuating Britain’s southwest peninsula. A miserable place of rain and bog or a sunny upland of exquisite natural beauty, here the elements are raw, the sky huge and …

The Dartmoor Pony Born in the dark grey granite dell On a morn of russet chill, Damp heather now will be my bed On this moorland, heath & hill. And when my mother's milk runs dry Tough grass will be my fare. No fancy bran and oats for me I …