Tag Archives: Dartmoor

In the words of the famous Cornish philosopher Jethro, ‘now before we start‘, if you look on the Ordnance Survey map at grid reference SX 62155 82471 you will find ‘Statt’s House’. That in itself is fairly unique because look in almost any respected book about Dartmoor and you won’t …

 Ice is probably a strange thing to list amongst the aspects of Dartmoor but thanks to a man with foresight it was, for a very short time, a thriving industry on northern Dartmoor. In wintertime the one thing Dartmoor is not short of is ice and if you go back …

Probably the unsung hero of Widecombe-in-the-Moor is the tiny well located at the edge of the main square. Visitors tend to flock to the church and the shops in search of ‘Uncle Tom’ and can quite easily miss what has been described as the, “most picturesque well in Devon. It …

I tramp o’er the moors in the fresh morning air, The breeze in my face, so bracing and rare. Deep golden gorse amidst heather I saw, Whilst climbing “up over” high Rippon Tor. The track through the bracken on velvety turf, Grey rocks, lichen-cover’d, and red-brown earth, Wild shaggy ponies …

The ‘legendary’ Postbridge Clapper has got to be one of  the top three ‘hotspots’ on Dartmoor. How many people that have visited the moor have not got either a photo or a postcard of the old bridge? Visit Postbridge on any summer’s day and see the buses piling into the …

“Whom the untaught Shepherds call Pixies in their madrigal, Fancy’s children, here we dwell: Welcome, Ladies! to our cell. Here the wren of softest note Builds its nest and warbles well; Here the blackbird strains his throat; Welcome, Ladies! to our cell.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Songs of the Pixies. …

In 1984 Prince Charles described a new extension to the National Gallery as a, “monstrous carbuncle”, but he was not the first to liken a skin blemish unto an architectural intrusion on the landscape. Since the early 1900s Dartmoor or to be more precise, Whitchurch Down has had a structure …

I would wager a months salary that thousands of people have driven or walked over the modern bridge that carries the B3212 over the Blackabrook just to the north east of Princetown and not even noticed the little building now called the ‘Okery’. And why should they, afterall it looks …

The three military firing ranges encompass much of north Dartmoor and they have done for a very long time. Many of the structures associated with the military’s activities can be classed as ‘archaeological features’ which include target railways, butts, bound stones and the observation posts or OP’s as they are …

Ever heard the saying, “like using a hammer to crack a nut”? Well you won’t get a much bigger hammer than the ‘Nutcrackers’ and that’s for sure. At one time this must have been one of the finest balanced logan stones on Dartmoor. Basically a logan or logging stone is …