In the little moorland churchyard of Manaton stands a sad, time worn granite cross. It is hard to imagine that, not that long ago, the peaceful tranquillity of this Dartmoor parish was shattered by a bitter dispute over the church cross. For time immemorial there had been a tradition that …

In many a green and solemn place, Girt with the wild hills round, The shadow of the holy cross Yet sleepeth on the ground. North Bovey can boast a typical and picturesque village green that is studded with artefacts from a bygone age. Sitting majestically in the shade of a …

One question that always intrigues me is when did people first realise that someone had died and feel the need to actually bury them as opposed to just discarding or eating the corpse? Also what happened to make these same people feel the need to actually bury the body with …

One of Dartmoor’s most enigmatic features are the standing stones which sit on the remote hilltops surveying the centuries as they speed by. The sad fact is that in the whole of the Dartmoor National park there are only 12 which are left intact and stand on the open moor. …

Standing in the stroll of the field next to the church stands a large, incised stone with Viking style runic carving, this is the ‘Rune Stone’. Just across the road stands a pillar of granite with a sculpture of a shield and axe mounted on it, this is the ‘Saxon …

There is a sinister pathway that winds its sombre way across the northern wastes of Dartmoor, it is known as the ‘Way of the Dead’, the ‘Corpse Way‘, or the Lych Way. Its roots are firmly set deep in the days when every person on the moor was expected to …

Since the first early Christian stone crosses appeared on Dartmoor there has been a constant ebb and flow of their numbers down through the ages. It seems that some disappear whilst other are discovered or rediscovered, one such example of this is the supposed cross head on Three Barrows Hill. …

Shoveldon, Shuggledown, Shuffledown or Shovel Down as the Ordnance Survey insist on recording it is another of Dartmoor’s finest prehistoric landscapes consisting of settlements, field systems, cairns, stone rows, and slap, bang in the centre ‘The Longstone’. When viewed from the south west it is evident by its weary lean …

Just south of Lynch Tor stands a chaotic pile of granite which consists of an outcrop studded and encircled by smaller rocks and boulders, this is Limsboro Cairn. What at first appears to be an insignificant scatter of granite has in fact millennia of history lying back in the annals …

Just to the west of Chagford the North Teign river flows past the famous Gidleigh Park and then takes a sudden dive southwards. After it has recovered from this drastic manoeuvre it then flows under an ancient bridge known as ‘Leigh Bridge’ and today the bridge carries The Two Moors …