A day on Dartmoor

..............................'A hound it was, an enormous coal-black hound.......fire burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed with smouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap were outlined in flickering flame.' Inspired perhaps by the folk legend of the fiery-eyed black Wisht Hounds, which hunt with the Devil on his headless horse in Wistman's Wood, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle began writing The Hound of the Baskervilles while staying on Dartmoor.

Just a short drive through the rolling green and gold hills of traditional farmland fields girded with drystone walls and hedgerows, one enters Dartmoor National Park. Climbing to the summit of a high tor, one stands on rock that has been 280 million years in the making. This is the land of my childhood, a beautiful and sometimes savage landscape, a place of weekend picnics, Sunday School outings, nature walks.......and those legendary tales of several horror novels.

With its gorse and heather covered moorland, deep wooded gorges, tumbling rocky rivers, thriving market towns and villages, patchwork farmland and craggy granite tors, the park covers 368 square miles - the largest, wildest, area of open country in southern England.

Dartmoor isn't just wild, it's special too. There are nature reserves, sights of Special Scientific Interest, endangered birds and rare plants, and thousands of archaeological sites, including burial chambers, stone circles and menhirs (tall standing stones) - more than anywhere else in Europe. There are remains of mines and quarries, ruined castles. medieval abbeys, ancient churches and bridges.

Pull on your wellies (Wellington boots), the land can be boggy, the heather and gorse prickly, and I'll take you across the High Moors, the central area.


A typical farm on the edge of the moor.

Sheep with their newborn lambs covered the hillside pastures.....................

........................even rested on the moorland roadways, stubborn creatures who refused to move...........

.........and took frequent lunch breaks along the stony walls.

Some showers dampened the day and pictures were taken through raindrops as we cruised across the moorland.
There have been ponies here since 2,000BC. They are untamed but not wild, and are marked with brands, ear tags and ear cuts to identify their owners. Numbers have declined over the last 50 years from 30,000 to less than 3,000, yet they are essential for moorland ecology. I clearly recall newspaper photos from my childhood years showing ponies weathering the Winter snows on the high moor.The magnificent white water of the River Dart is downstream from this area around Dartmeet and Fingle Bridge. On warm Summer afternoons I often picnicked along these banks with friends.

Next time I'll continue the Dartmoor day..............a famous village with a song, and a search for the perfect Devon Cream Tea.................
......................see you in Widecombe-in-the-Moor.