In 1811 the first edition of “Risdon’s Survey of Devon” was updated, possibly by one John Taylor. At the time he was President of the Geological Society and resided on Dartmoor for some years. He also had interests in several Dartmoor mines and  was engaged in several agricultural pursuits. In …

In 1906 Sabine Baring Gould, the noted Dartmoor antiquarian and folklore author, wrote an article for a London newspaper. It was called “Do you believe in ghosts? – Explanations of some strange sights and sounds.” “Mr. William Ewebank Jones was a man of many parts, and all good. He was …

For centuries the only means a passenger had of traveling between Tavistock and Okehampton and beyond was by means of a horse-draw coach. The coming of the railway was the ‘death knell’ for the owners of many of these coach companies, the staging inns, and indeed local hauliers.  It was …

Imagine embarking on a three-day tour of Dartmoor with accommodation in some of the ‘finest’ hotels the area has to offer – sounds tempting? Now imagine a three-day tour of Dartmoor in September but travelling in an open top horse drawn carriage, along with other passengers, staying at the ‘finest’ …

Due to their very nature the rivers of Dartmoor have been the ideal habitats for salmon and trout.  Such a rich harvest provided many of the riverside landowners with an income as too the local businesses who profited from the visiting anglers. Certainly by the late 1800s virtually every hotel, …

Today the very thought of Otter hunting is abhorrent and barbaric and thankfully came under protection under the ‘Wildlife and Countryside Act in 1981 and later with the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations of 2017. This means it is illegal to deliberately kill, injure, disturb or capture them, damage …

There are two locations on Dartmoor where the placename “Ringhill” can be found. The first is just to the east of Oxenham Manor where there is the “Ringhill,” “Ringhill Coppice” and “Ringhill Cross.” The second lies just to the north of Postbridge in the form of what was once “Ringhill …

Catherine Parr, alias the noted Dartmoor authoress Beatrice Chase lived just outside Widecombe-in-the-Moor at Venton. She is best described as a typical Victorian dame and was a formidable, outspoken egotist on many matters including Dartmoor. John Oxenham wrote a novel in which Beatrice Chase was the heroine, the book was …

In the late 1890s the editor of the Torquay Times wrote several articles under the title of “Some Devonshire Villages. In the July of 1895 he published article number seven when he visited Widecombe-in-the-Moor and in which he described his excursion… “My quarters were, as usual, at the Rock Hotel, …

It is said that “one should never judge a book by its cover,” and in the case of Roger Claxton’s new book the cover says it all. The title “Widecombe’s Ancient Landscape” has been cleverly designed to portray many aspects of exactly that in such a way as one wants …