Today we have the luxury of instant communication with the benefits of email, online news coverage, and mobile phones etc. on and around Dartmoor. But how was this achieved in days long gone by in such a remote area? I think the answer would be very, very slowly if at …

On Dartmoor there are numerous enigmatic prehistoric standing stones, there are hundreds of boundstones, there are many ancient crosses, and there are a few stones which are a combination of them all.  It could be said that the latter category of stones have over time been re-cycled to represent different …

“A long time ago came a man on a trackWalking thirty miles with a sack on his backAnd he put down his load where he thought it was the bestHe made a home in the wilderness He built a cabin and a winter storeAnd he ploughed up the ground by …

  Today Auswell Woods consist of just over 138 hectares of woodland and heathland which is now open to the public. Here there is evidence of prehistoric history, medieval history, post medieval history, and industrial archaeology. All of these surrounded by every aspect of nature anyone could wish for with …

“The fine form of Lether Tor, like a sentinel, guards the pass,… Although in altitude considerably less than the immense hill above the Walkham, this precipitous hill is in contour far more a true mountain.” – J. LL. W. Page, An Exploration of Dartmoor, p.150. “The conspicuous feature in the …

RAYBARROW POOL –  described as a Little Tarn, a Mere, a Mire, and more commonly a Pool which probably is the most unlikely descriptive of them all. Just like Cranmere Pool do not expect to see a body of shimmering water or expect a ‘Wild Swim’ (that is available further …

In the July of 1916, the Government introduced the Home Office Scheme whereby Conscientious Objectors were given the chance to leave prison and work at designated labour camps called “Work Centres.”. It was announced that from the 1st of March 1917 “Dartmoor Prison will be closed for convict prisoners and …

“Sir Thomas (Tyrwhitt) may be regarded as the founder of Princetown, since it was through his instrumentality that the war prison, which called the town into existence, was erected on the Moor. Many houses were built in the neighbourhood of the prison; a mill and bakery were established at Bachelor’s …

WHO IS POSSIBLY THE MOST HATED LANDOWNER IN BRITAIN TODAY? – In 2011 Alexander Darwall, a hedge fund manager of Devon Equity Management purchased the 4,000 acre Blatchford Estate on Dartmoor in 2001 which then made him Dartmoor’s sixth largest landowner. Along with Blatchford Estate Darwall also owns the 16,000 …

In 1831 Samuel Lewis in his Topographical Dictionary of England stated that the parish of Christow “contained 531 inhabitants.” Nineteen years later Whites Devonshire Directory noted that there were “624 souls” living in the Parish.  It also listed that there was a school mistress/postmistress, a blacksmith, a cattle doctor, a …