“Black Tor Copse (Blackator Copse) spreads straggling under the granite masses above. It is a stony grove set in a wilderness, flanked by the steep of a mountain on one side, fringed by the silver of Oke (West Okement) upon the other. The song of this river met the lisp …

  On the 23rd of September (2017) Channel 4 screened the first episode in a new series of ‘Britain’s Ancient Tracks with Tony Robinson. It was filmed and produced by the Irish Doubleband Films Company and featured the Abbot’s Way and the Lych Way as it’s ancient tracks on Dartmoor. …

  Dipsacus fullonum – alias Teasel, Teazle. Teasle, whatever you want to call it the teasel is amongst the more easily identifiable plants that occur on Dartmoor. It had for centuries also played an important part in Dartmoor’s cloth making industry. On Dartmoor teasels can be found in moist grassland …

  “The cuckoo shouts all day at nothing in leafy dells alone, – And traveller’s Joy beguiles in autumns hearts that have lost their own.” – A. E. Houseman. Clematis vitalba – As its name suggests this plant is a member of the clematis family and can be seen virtually …

The European Alnus glutinosa or Alder is one of the several common and native trees to be found on Dartmoor and the name has derived from the Anglo Saxon word – alor which in a roundabout way means red or brown. Other local names for the tree are Aller, Aller Bush …

  Drive down the B3212 and you will find another of Dartmoor’s ‘Little Gems’ in the shape of Powder Mills, today there is a signpost for a pottery but 160 odd years ago there would have been a busy industrial landscape. This was the site of a gunpowder making factory …

‘Learn a lesson from this dial, Dwell not on the past; Greet the present with a smile, For future cannot last.’ Many will argue that the first use of a sundial began way back in prehistoric time in the form of the stone rows, circles and menhirs which acted as …

  He was on his way to Willsworthy, four miles from the parish church, at the extreme end of the parish, to pay a pastoral visit to Mistress Malvine, who was an invalid. Before reaching the house he came to a ruined chapel, that had not been used since the …

  The first recorded evidence of Widecombe Fair appeared on Saturday, October the 19th 1850 when the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette announced that on the following Friday (25th) a Free Fair would be held on the Green which adjoined the churchyard at Widecombe-in-the-Moor. It was expected that a large show …

I now observe a massive block, Well known by name as Roborough Rock, Which has stood on this English ground, Yes, ever since the world was drowned: As autumn leaves we fade away, But still that rock will keep its stay Quite firm against all storm and cold, As was …