Historic Dartmoor

It is said that ‘An ill wind blows no good’ but in the winter of 2006 a mighty moorland storm blasted through the Bellever Plantation skittling and snapping the conifer trees like matchsticks. So to use another saying; ‘one man’s gain is another man’s loss’ insomuch as there was undoubtedly …

Some of the monuments in and around the Bellever/Laughter Tor/ Lakehead Hill area at one time each had a numbered post which related to it’s description etc. As a result of time and weather (possibly vandalism)  some still have their number posts in-situ and some have lost them. Either way …

One of the biggest travesties as far as Dartmoor archaeology is concerned must be the forestation of the area around Bellever and to a lesser extent, Laughter tor. The forest was planted by the Duchy of Cornwall in 1921 in order to replenish wood supplies and this effectively blanketed about …

“Here stood Bair Down Man, a lofty menhir that wrote humanity upon the wilderness… those uplifted fragments of unwrought rock that stood where the bygone people worshipped their spirits or buried their dead—were but scratches on earth’s face to tell that here the ” old men ” had intercourse with …

“Near this were two or three fragments of pottery, and close under these a small urn was discovered, which had been crushed by the subsidence of the cairn stones… The bottom of the urn was resting on the * calm,” and lying amongst the sherds was a flint knife in …

Another fire rose furious up; behind Another and another: all the hills Each beyond each held up its crest of flame. Along the heavens the bright crimson hue Widening and deepening travels on; the range O’erleaps black Tamar, by whose ebon tide Cornwall is bounded; and on to Haytor rock …

Whilst researching the King’s Oven page it became clear that within the locality were a large number of cairns and other prehistoric ritual features. For Dartmoor this is nothing out of the norm but one name seemed to jump out from the map – Asacombe Hill. The name alone boggles …

During a spell of boredom I was scrolling over an old Ordnance Survey map of Dartmoor when I spotted an wooded oval feature which was labelled as  ‘Camp (site of)‘. Today the landscape feature is labelled as a ‘Settlement‘ by the OS. This is situated in the enclosures of Archerton …

During the 1200’s the country saw a marked increase in the size of its population which meant there was a greater demand on the food resources until there came a time when enough food was not being produced. This in turn lead to farmers looking at cultivating land that previously …

I remember once being up on Great Gnats Head when a rather bemused gentleman came over with map in hand and more frowning furrows on his forehead than there were contour lines on the map. It transpired that he was rather concerned because he could not find the Abbot’s Way …