Tales Of Dartmoor

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 …

There is a growing amount of evidence that man has lived and stalked the moors for a good 10,000 years when at that time he would have been a lot sturdier, hairier and muscular than today. As time went by the human race slowly evolved into what we are now, …

Before we get to the astounding news that has just been announced to the world of archaeology let me put a quote past you in order to get some sort of context of what can only be described as a startling discovery at Bellever Tor: ‘This tor (Bellever), owing to …

  Now you may wonder what on earth a Dartmoor tor has to do with the hobbyhorse and you would have to go back to the prehistoric days when iron was just starting to be used to find out. In those dim and distant times the local tribe in Devon …

During the late 1800’s the rabbit was a staple food on Dartmoor and was favourite dish eaten by all classes of people. However, in 1865 a rabbit pie was made that seriously made folks think twice about ever eating such a dish again. Once again this story is taken from …

‘Go back to a time before the invention of artificial light and experience a world petrified in the pitch of darkness…when fear ruled the night. Throughout the ages, real and imagined terror existed in the absence of light, and nightime was anything but relaxing. Our predecessors cowered in caves to …