Tag Archives: Dartmoor

Having recently spent the night at the Two Bridges Hotel it was fascinating to come across this story of another guest who stayed there 122 years ago and the reason for his vacation. Back in those days there was a consensus of opinion that many ailments could be cured by …

Let me take you back to Princetown on the morning of Tuesday the 4th of June 1907. It’s ten o’clock and Princetown is suddenly engulfed in a shroud of thick Dartmoor fog – nothing new there then. Through this opaque wall of mist can be heard the sound of horse’s …

Today there are still ‘treasures’ to be discovered or rediscovered on Dartmoor. However, before people go grabbing metal detectors etc. I don’t mean gold and valuables. I am referring to pieces of Dartmoor’s history, archaeology and heritage that have suddenly come to light. I would suggest that some of these …

Here is a case of a typical Dartmoor confusion – I’ve seen Sanduck Cross – which one? The old ancient cross or the road ‘T’ junction called Sanduck Cross? In this particular case the old ancient wayside cross which sits in the hedgerow near Sanduck Farm. To begin with how …

“He voiced his opinion on a day when he and Lawrence were working together on the great fern slopes under the Beacon. There, some weeks before, the bracken had been mown down with scythes, and now the harvest was dry and ready to be stacked for winter litter. They made …

“As we are again on the Moor we may as well descend upon Gidleigh by way of Creaber Pound; not the old structure, which has long since disappeared in newtake walls, but a piece of enclosed common at the foot of the Moor, through which strangely enough, the road passes. …

You are driving over the B3212 road by Shapley Common, its a crisp autumn day, the heather is in full bloom casting a purple hue over the hazy moorland and all of a sudden in the middle of the road you see a shaggy looking cow. Somewhere beneath its furry …

Dinna Clerks, AKA Dinah Clerk – who or more technically what are they? In all reality nothing to get too excited about, they are in fact the names of three fields belonging to or once belonged to West Shallowford which lies to the south-west of Widecombe-in-the-Moor. As can be seen …

“Rolling featureless in a great, rounded mass on the western frontiers of Dartmoor; marked only by the occasional pit or mound, where man has burrowed without success for metal; its mighty back close-coated in ling and heath and the lesser whin, there heaves up Gibbet Hill.” Eden Phillpotts, Gibbet Hill, …

‘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 …