It’s a well known fact that Dartmoor granite is ideally suited for fashioning monuments and gravestones and examples of such can be seen all around the United Kingdom. In the churchyard of St. Michael and All Angels at Pirbright stands a huge monolith of Dartmoor granite. This marks the grave …

It’s many years since I last went to St. Winifred’s church at Manaton and that was just a fleeting visit so on a typical Dartmoor day with heavy showers interspersed with bursts of sunshine I called in again. On walking through the lych gate the sun burst through the grey …

“The tradition of the ‘Wish Huntsman’ and his ‘Demon Dogs’ still lingers on Dartmoor, but in a very shadowy state. The Dewer Stone is regarded as the spot he chiefly favours, and report used to describe him as a swarthy individual who hunted at night, and then only when a …

Here is an account come guide book come survival guide for Dartmoor which was written in 1873. As can be seen somethings never change whilst others give just a glimpse of days long gone by and never to be seen again. Some will say it’s a good thing whilst others …

As always, whilst researching something else I came across the following paragraph in a paper written by Samuel Rowe in the 1830 issue of  ‘The Transactions of the Plymouth Institution’; “In a small pasture field about a furlong S. E. of Manaton church, adjoining a parish road, is an enclosure …

Nestled between the bosom of Rowden Ball and Dunstone Down is the ‘deserted medieval village’ of what today is known as ‘Hutholes. The term ‘village’ is probably doing the settlement huge injustice as once it was an ancient manor dating way back into the long-lost mists of time. If ever …

  “Get off my lands,” – since prehistoric times mankind has seen the need to clearly define its tribal lands by means of boundaries marked by various landscape features. These age old boundaries encompass countries, counties,boroughs, towns and parishes – right down to personal properties. One age-old tradition whereby communities …

Over the years there have been numerous guide books written about Dartmoor and if asked to name a few the answers would probably be ‘Crossing’s Guide to Dartmoor’ Hemery’s ‘High Dartmoor’, Jeremy Butler’s ‘Dartmoor Atlases of Antiquities’, Worth’s ‘Dartmoor’, Rowe’s ‘Perambulation of Dartmoor’ and Mike Brown’s ‘Field guides’ to name …

Having recently spent the night at the Two Bridges Hotel it was fascinating to come across this story of another guest who stayed there 122 years ago and the reason for his vacation. Back in those days there was a consensus of opinion that many ailments could be cured by …

It has been claimed that last year at least 158 animals were killed on the roads of Dartmoor by vehicles. There are signs along most roadsides of the central moorland routes advising people to take ‘Moor Care’. An enforceable speed limit of 40 mph has been put in place in …