Tales Of Dartmoor

Some folks will say the piskies are good and others that they are mischievous nuisances and I am saying nothing. But there was a piskie called ‘Leg Ends’ that both humans and little folk detested. The reason he was called ‘Leg Ends’ was because at the end of every leg …

Just outside Princetown once stood ‘The Ockerry‘ or Oakery as it is known today. It stands besides a bridge which spans the Blackabrook as depicted above. It was here that in the days or your great grandparents, great grand parents a poor old woman was making her way back to …

It was late evening when a lone labourer was trudging home across the moor under the silvery light of a full moon. It had been a hard day spent shovelling potatoes into the cavern-like cavities of the potatoes caves and all the man wanted was his supper. It was a …

About a mile south of Tavistock are the remains of an old copper mine known as Crowndale Mine, little is known about its origins but in 1799 the mine was resurrected and re-worked.  An old plan of the mine shows that in its heyday the mine had 18 shafts, the …

Here is a story from 1836 that illustrates the type of itinerants that were roaming the countryside and travelling with the various country fairs. This is a true story concerning the murder of Mr Jonathan May who on the 16th of July 1835 had travelled from his home at Sowton …

Situated below Yar tor is a kistvaen known as ‘The Money Pit’. The story attached to this particular one concerns a farmer from the Poundsgate area who by all accounts was a kind and friendly soul. One night he had a dream in which he saw the kistvaen loaded with …

In the year 1641, near the little moorland town of Chagford lived a woman called Mary Whiddon who lived at nearby Whiddon Park. As with many folk tales her story involved two men one of which was the jealous and vengeful type. Mary had made the mistake of jilting one …

Tom Upcott was a farmer from the parish of Walkhampton, he lived on a small, remote farm with his wife and two boys. One morning, as he was about to drove some bullocks to Tavistock market, his wife dashed out into the yard. “Tummas” she yelled, “I want ee to …

  High up on the moor is the small hamlet of Sherwell and it was here in the days of the ‘old ways’ lived an old woman called Martha Whitchalse. Martha’s life had not be what could be called a ‘bed of roses’, more like a ‘bed of nails’. As …

It was a dark foggy night and the moor was as still as the grave, not a fox barked or an owl hooted. Times as this everybody should be firmly shuttered up infront of a warm peat fire and if they weren’t they wished they were. One poor soul found …