Fust it rain’d then it blaw’d The it ‘ail’d then it snaw’d Then it com’d a shower o’ rain Then it vreez’d an blaw’d agean. Wet, misty, foggy, windy, cold, and even wetter – all descriptions of Dartmoor’s weather that readily comes to people’s minds. Hardly ever do you hear …

Warts have always been considered as unsightly and associated with old crones and disease. It is therefore no surprise that many folk were keen to rid themselves of wart afflictions by any means possible. As you will see many of the cures are based on the theory that it took …

Recently (June 2009) the dog and I were walking up on Hameldon Ridge the other week, it was a glorious day with the promise of some good hot weather and a typical Dartmoor stroll, which it turned out to be. However, on the way back to the car I could …

Springtime on Dartmoor sees the emergence of the delicate violet, often nestled under a hedgebank alongside the primrose. This sweet scented harbinger of warmer days has for centuries been part of the moorman’s medicine cabinet and lore. The violet is common along the hedgebanks and row of the lower moorland …

“About them stretched square fields, off some of which a harvest of oats had just been shorn; while others were grass green with the sprawling foliage of turnip.” Falcon Farm – Orphan Diana, Eden Phillpotts For anyone that has seen the now famous Warhorse movie they will recall the Dartmoor …

I don’t think I would be far wrong in suggesting that there are very few places on Dartmoor from which a tor of some kind is not visible. This is hardly surprising as it is the literal bedrock of the moor and what we see today are mere vestiges of …

Summer is the time of year when you can return from a day out on Dartmoor and find you have one or more uninvited hitch hikers firmly attached to your person. Depending on how soon you discover them they can appear as a small, spider-like insect or as a reddish …

The Dartmoor Tinners have always been a law unto themselves, at one time they had their own parliament and laws with the rights to virtually mine tin wherever they wanted. Recent legend tells of how they even had their own symbol or badge in the shape of three rabbits running …

‘Learn a lesson from this dial, Dwell not on the past; Greet the present with a smile, For future cannot last.’ Many will argue that the first use of a sundial began way back in prehistoric time in the form of the stone rows, circles and menhirs which acted as …

“There from his rocky pulpit, I heard a cry The Stonecrop: See how loose to earth I grow, And draw my juicy nurture from the sky: So draw not thou, fond man, thy root so low., But loosely clinging here, From God’s supernatural sphere Draw life’s unearthly food – catch …