For centuries there have been lurid tales of the infamous Black Dog and the Wisht Hounds that haunt the bleak moor on dark nights. Relentlessly they search for lost souls and strike fear into the hearts of any lone traveller. Right up to this very day no poor wretch has …

Old Joe Leaman lived in a small cott down by Dartmeet and was a moorlander of the old kind. All his life he had lived and worked on Dartmoor and was now enjoying his retirement. His little cott provided him with a comfortable home and its garden fed him through …

In a small rundown Dartmoor cott there once lived a man called Jimmy Townsend. Now Jimmy was a sociable fellow who liked a yarn and a ‘drap o juice’, he was the likable rogue of the area. If Jimmy was attending a harvest home or at the market you knew …

“James Perrott, the well known guide, the best living authority on that land of tors, of which he is, indeed, a veritable ‘walking cyclopaedia.” – J. Ll. W. Page 1895. Back in the time when there was no such thing as health and safety, personal injury claims and perceived danger …

“And near hereto’s the Gubbins’ cave; A people that no knowledge have Of law, of God, or men; Whom Caesar never yet subdued, Who’ve lawless liv’d; of manners rude; All savage in their den. By whom, if any pass that way, He dares not the least time to stay, For …

Back in the dark ages almost every tor was home to a fearsome giant. Slowly, one by one they all died either at each others hand or through old age. Until the last living ogre was the largest and fiercest of them all – namely Moran the mighty. Now Moran …

High up the reaches of the Red Brook stands the ruin of a tinners hut known as Garth’s House. This small granite shelter was once his abode. One spring day he set of to his tin sett, on reaching the works he noticed what he initially thought to be a …

Back in 1844 Eliza Bray related the tale of Nicholas Mason the freebooter and according to the Oxford Dictionary a freebooter was/is, ‘a piratical adventurer, a pirate; any person who goes about in search of plunder‘. From that description one would today simply call him a Labour Minister but things …

I will make a bet than any Dartmoor lover has never once thought that just maybe they would love to live in the wilds of Dartmoor, away from everybody and spend their days tramping the moor – I know I have on many occasions. Clearly in this day and age …

It is not surprising that with such a legendary figure as Sir Francis Drake there are many folk stories told about him. Although he did not live on Dartmoor there are quite a few traditions associated with him and the moor. As he was such an heroic figure it is …