Belstone is one of those small moorland villages where you can spend hours walking around and discovering little curiosities hidden in every nook and cranny. One of the more obvious features are the stocks which are sat by the village green where they testify to punishments of years gone by. …

It seems a fair assumption that with all the cider drunk in Devonshire beer consumption would be lower than other areas but this was not so. Old farm inventories for Devon show that there were 30 references to cider but 68 to beer and beer making. It must be remembered …

In the general sense the word ‘beehive hut‘ generally refers to the secular ‘beehive’ shaped huts in which the monks of Ireland, Scotland and parts of England lived. The term can also apply to the beehive shaped musgum mud-built huts in which the indigenous people of Cameroon live in. All …

To this day if you look carefully around some of the old Dartmoor farms you will see what look like small cupboards made of granite. They are either built into or alongside a wall and will consist of anything from one to eight small recesses or niches, each with a …

Walk up amongst the heather on a hot summer’s day and the moor will literally buzz with the noise of bees busily collecting pollen. With such an abundance it is hardly surprising that Dartmoor folk fully utilised this resource and that the bee has found itself firmly embedded in tradition …

Having recently just completed a webpage on the ‘Pits of Dartmoor‘ it does seems logical to follow it with a page on the Beams and Gerts of Dartmoor. Mainly due to the fact that both beams and gerts began life as pits before they actually formed. I must admit it …

There has been a great deal of media attention paid to the subject of ‘cyber bullying’ whereby people receive threatening or malicious comments via email or text. There have been some fatal and upsetting outcomes of these actions and in some cases the senders have been prosecuted. However, is this …

It becomes very apparent that in a lot of the murders committed on Dartmoor there is the recurring association with a town fair. Obviously the occasion would merit the gathering of people and the consumption of alcohol which both could be the precursors to violent actions. It would also appear …

On many of the farms located on the arable fringes of the moor a common sight was the stone ‘ash house’. These are small circular buildings with conical roofs which would be located near to the farm. Back in the old days the combination of open fires, wide chimneys and …

Every now and then nature transforms Dartmoor into a spectacle of shimmering ice and frost which coats literally everything in a mantle of glistening ice crystals, on the moor this is known as ‘The Ammil’. This phenomenon occasionally occurs in other parts of the country but is normally regarded as …