Tag Archives: Dartmoor

Over time there have been numerous perilous occupations on Dartmoor – miners, farm labourers, quarrymen, and not to mention lime burners. Dartmoor was and is a primary area for agriculture of which arable farming has been an important aspect. One of the most important conditions for ensuring agricultural crops will …

  “Through the hamlet of Cornwood they drove, past a graceful cross that lifted beneath an oak; and then onward by hill and dale and farmstead, by water-meadows and streamlets, through woods and pastures, their road extended – so lonely that it was grass-grown in places. The lanes – survivals …

Over the centuries Dartmoor has lost many old characters, all of whom were proud, hardworking men, born of the moor and all who have left their legacy in the pages of the moor’s history. One such character was Jonas Coaker the ‘Dartmoor Poet’. Jonas Coaker was born at Hartyland near …

Two things Dartmoor is not short of – granite and walls and both make an integral ‘marriage’ in its landscape. What follows is some anonymous persons’ viewpoint from 1884 on the Walls of Dartmoor. Today many of what they describe can still be seen on and around the moor today.  …

“Quintin’s Close – on Uphill derives its name from Quintin’s Graveyard, a plot of wasteland lying between the forks of the road adjoining. Quintin appears to be another of the many names given to the Devil, and Quintin’s Graveyard is yet another example of a crossroads at which a suicide …

“A wide ride, higher on the down, bisects the conifer plantation along the crest and continues southward from Dagger Hill towards the cairns, standing in clear ground, on the apex of the down; these, in the days when men rode past them and knew their distinctive pimples from afar, were …

Most of the early reports of Dartmoor Prison paint a stark and sombre picture of prison life behind those imposing granite walls. But here is one from 1909 that almost reads like an advert for the gaol which could have appeared in a travel magazine. Clearly Mr. B. T. Bridges …

The tale of how Jan Reynolds was taken from Widecombe church for playing cards during the service has already been told on another Legendary Dartmoor page. But who was Jan Reynolds and what led up to the fateful day when the Devil took him away? Well… “It is said that …

Due west of the small moorland village of Drewsteignton lies Bradmere Pool, a large, tree lined, dark, foreboding place which covers about 3 acres. Today the pool is more commonly known as Bradford Pool but in the past it has been called Beechmere Pool. Colonel Hamilton Smith an early antiquarian …

In 1887 William Crossing published his book – ‘The Ancient Stone Crosses of Dartmoor’ prior to which he had spent a great deal of time locating both the standing granite crosses of the moor and those who had not weathered the storms and interventions of mankind and animals so well. …