The Dartmoor Arts

Tom Pearce. Tom Pearce, lend me your grey mare, All along, down along, out along lee, For I want for to go to Widdecombe Fair, Wi’ Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney, Peter Davy, Dan’l Whiddon, Harry Hawk, old uncle Tom Cobley and all, old Uncle Tom Cobley and all. …

The incident which the following lines describe occurred in the winter of 1820 and involves two farm apprentice boys who became lost in a snow-storm whilst travelling across Dartmoor. It is very similar to the story of the Brad Stones and may well refer to the same lads. Ye who …

Author – Ken Ringwood ISBN 978-1-84102-361-8 Publishers- University of Plymouth Press Price – £15 To write any book is definitely a labour of love, often with little reward especially if it’s on the subject of Dartmoor and here is a book that has taken several years to compile. It is …

Dartmoor has over the centuries inspired numerous poets, authors and artists but there is one particular artist that was not only inspired by the landscape but by the livestock who grazed upon it. Anybody who is familiar with the music of Gordon Lightfoot will probably know his song, “The Pony …

Sitting on my league two shelf of Dartmoor books is a forlorn and rapidly disintegrating red book, its spine slowly rotting away. The only redeeming feature about it is the golden engraved picture of Spinster’s Rock on its cover. Inside the first page, in fading ink, are the words; “Dr. …

On a rather upbeat note for a change here is a verse/song that comes from Sabine Baring Gould’s – ‘A Book of the West’. As can be seen there is no mention of the dreary aspects of Dartmoor. Here are the thoughts of a true Dartmoor lover laid out in …

Just before his death, the author William Crossing compiled a book of Dartmoor poems and amongst these was ‘The Song of the Dartmoor Men’. Vur good red gold, King John, we’m told, Sot all broad Devon free Vrom the forest laws, ‘cept Dartymoor, But made it plain to see, That …

SIMON THORN   Old Simon Thorn was a Devonian, bred and born, And Work’d in his master’s fields all day from early morn; A real good man was Simon, truthful in deed and word, And through Life’s many sorrows, as blithesome as a bird.     My lot in this …

Dartmoor is criss-crossed by many ancient tracks and paths which have been used by various travellers for centuries, these varied from a couple of miles to long slogs of twenty plus miles. One such track was the ‘Mariner’s Way‘ which ran from Bideford in north Devon to Dartmouth in south …

According to the Oxford English Dictionaries the definition of the word ‘inspiration‘ is; “the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative“. There are a few landscape photographers that have the talent to give inspiration through their pictures and Russell Stewart Stone is …