Dartmoor Places

“A picturesque agglomeration of buildings, beside the river. The mill-wheel, fed by a stream taken from the Teign some distance up the valley and here returned again to the parent water, thundered on its solemn round in an eternal twinkling twilight of dripping ferns and green mosses; while hard by the …

Personally I love reading accounts of tours and trips upon Dartmoor from centuries ago, it’s fascinating to read about the landscapes, the soundscapes, along with the smellscapes and tastescapes (if there are such words?). What these writers experienced in many cases has long since been consigned to history’s lost property …

Buttern Hill, probably one of the lesser Dartmoor locations to get onto anyones ‘bucket list’ but nevertheless there are plenty of landscape features to behold along with some wide ranging views from its summit. The actual origin of the place-name may well give a clue to some of those landscape …

When travelling along the B3357 from Tavistock to Princetown there are several car parks, the largest and most obvious being Pork Hill but probably the one with a hidden secret is that of the enchantingly named ‘Four Winds’, sadly no longer named on many OS maps. The ruined walls that …

  Pork Hill – when travelling on the B3357 from Tavistock to Princetown one will encounter this hill as it winds it way up from the lowest point at Moorshop (175 metres) to the summit just past the car park (330 metres). In all likelihood a lycra-clad cyclist will be …

“Rolling featureless in a great, rounded mass on the western frontiers of Dartmoor; marked only by the occasional pit or mound, where man has burrowed without success for metal; its mighty back close-coated in ling and heath and the lesser whin, there heaves up Gibbet Hill.” Eden Phillpotts, Gibbet Hill, …

“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 …

  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 …

  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 …

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 …