Flora And Fauna

Springtime on Dartmoor sees the emergence of the delicate violet, often nestled under a hedgebank alongside the primrose. This sweet scented harbinger of warmer days has for centuries been part of the moorman’s medicine cabinet and lore. The violet is common along the hedgebanks and row of the lower moorland …

“About them stretched square fields, off some of which a harvest of oats had just been shorn; while others were grass green with the sprawling foliage of turnip.” Falcon Farm – Orphan Diana, Eden Phillpotts For anyone that has seen the now famous Warhorse movie they will recall the Dartmoor …

I don’t think I would be far wrong in suggesting that there are very few places on Dartmoor from which a tor of some kind is not visible. This is hardly surprising as it is the literal bedrock of the moor and what we see today are mere vestiges of …

Summer is the time of year when you can return from a day out on Dartmoor and find you have one or more uninvited hitch hikers firmly attached to your person. Depending on how soon you discover them they can appear as a small, spider-like insect or as a reddish …

The Dartmoor Tinners have always been a law unto themselves, at one time they had their own parliament and laws with the rights to virtually mine tin wherever they wanted. Recent legend tells of how they even had their own symbol or badge in the shape of three rabbits running …

‘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 …

“There from his rocky pulpit, I heard a cry The Stonecrop: See how loose to earth I grow, And draw my juicy nurture from the sky: So draw not thou, fond man, thy root so low., But loosely clinging here, From God’s supernatural sphere Draw life’s unearthly food – catch …

“I was reading your “Satan & the Holy Cross” page, which I found quite entertaining. You did mention “White Jelly fungus” which is sometimes found on Dartmoor. I have sometimes come across this substance on Dartmoor, and wondered what it is. The stuff I have seen,  which looks just like …

“I coulde never learne an Englishe name for it. The Duche men call it in Netherlande, spilboome, that is, spindel-tree, because they use to make spindels of it in that country, and me thynke it may be as well named in English seying we have no other name.” – William …

If by the 10th the snowdrops are out. More snow throughout the month without a doubt. It is quite fitting that I write this page on the 2nd of February as this is Candlemas Day which was/is strongly associated with the first snowdrops of the year appearing. At some of …