In 1642 King Charles I raised the royal standard in Nottingham, sent orders to his supporters and started to quell the rebellion of the parliamentary forces and the civil war began. On the 7th of February 1643 a body of parliamentary forces stopped at Chagford for overnight billeting. It is …

Centuries ago their lived a man called Sir William Kingdon who today has become completely lost in the mists of time. It may well be that he was related to Nicholas de Kingdom who along with Lady Dyonisia owned Skerraton manor in the 1200s. What is known is that during …

It is not very often that ‘new’ legends are found, especially ones that have been handed down through the generations but Vic Cowling has sent me another version of the Brentor story. Below are the contents of his email: “There is an older legend about Brentor which was told by …

Way back in the days when roads were few on Dartmoor an old moorman from Hannaford was travelling home on his pony across Sherberton Common. The day was drawing to a close and a stiff breeze was blowing down from the north. As he approached the little track which winds …

“On the very edge Of the vast moorland, startling every eye, A shape enormous rises! High it towers Above the hill’s bold brow, and seen from far, Assumes the human form; a granite god, – To whom in days long flown, the suppliant knee In trembling homage bowed. The hamlets …

On the south eastern edge of Dartmoor is a rather unspectacular pool known as ‘The Bloody Pool’. It is rumoured that this was once the site of a furious battle between a marauding band of Viking warriors and the local army. Many a brave soul lost his life that day …

  During the English Civil War, on the 8th February 1643 the Parliamentarian and Royalist armies were engaged in a bloody battle. The actual struggle took place near Chagford between the bridge over the river Teign and the Blackaton Brook at the bottom of Providence hill. The struggle was a …

Many years ago, before the social services were invented, there lived a woman at a small place called Brinning. She lived in the small cot with her small baby, the father had left to work in the mines. On this particular day mother and baby were out in the garden …

On the western edge of Dartmoor was a small remote meadow which had a huge fairy ring at its centre inside which grew the greenest, lushest grass ever seen. The old folks of the parish tell a tale that on some nights a jet black hen and her chicks could …

Sometime in the 18th century a large estate on the edge of the moor was bought by a mysterious nobleman. Nobody knew where he came from, but the local ‘newsin’ had it that he had made his fortune from the slave trade. Just like the nobility of the time he …