I’ve referred to Grimspound settlement in some previous blogs however I have not blogged it specifically.  The area I walked for this blog is just to the west of Grimspound.  I was walking in the area last week and, as part of the walk, I wandered around the area and got [...]]]>

I’ve referred to Grimspound settlement in some previous blogs however I have not blogged it specifically.  The area I walked for this blog is just to the west of Grimspound.  I was walking in the area last week and, as part of the walk, I wandered around the area and got a few photos of it.  The above shot is from the south of it looking north.  Grimspound itself was caught in the sunlight (which was rare that day).  Beyond it is Hookney Tor and there is a patch of swaling to be seen on the hillside to the right.

Approaching from the south means that you arrive at the main entrance to the settlement which is shown above.  The entrance is really very impressive as is the size of the surrounding walls.  Bear in mind this was a bronze age settlement, possibly neolithic, meaning it is around 3500 years old.  There is a small stream the far side of the settlement which would have provided water for the inhabitants both human and animal.

The entrance is almost 2 metres wide and around 5 metres long – the surrounding walls being over 4 metres wide in places.  It was thought that it could be a fortification in the past but its position some way from the top of the hill makes that unlikely.  The walls are more likely to have been to keep wildlife out and domestic stock in.

The above image shows one of the best views of a remaining hut circle here.  Around 20 have been counted within the settlement however many are now rather indistinct.  There is an “entrance porch” which faces away from the prevailing wind and the the actual accommodation which is usually circular.  Hookney Tor is on the horizon ahead again.

The above is the remains of another building or possibly buildings, there.  If this is a single building it is rather more rectangular than some.  Alternatively it is two circles that adjoin one another.  I have had days when I’ve had better luck with the light for photography but Grimspound (an English Heritage site) is unusual enough to warrant a posting even if the images are not quite perfect I felt.  Another blog on the rest of the walk will follow soon.

A welcome opportunity for a walk on the moors with a friend took us to Shipley Bridge on the southern edge of the moors.  It was late February and, although not cold, the weather was best described as “mixed” I guess.  The car park there is often quite full and used [...]]]>

A welcome opportunity for a walk on the moors with a friend took us to Shipley Bridge on the southern edge of the moors.  It was late February and, although not cold, the weather was best described as “mixed” I guess.  The car park there is often quite full and used for folk who park there to walk up the private road to the Avon Dam.  However when we arrived the car park was deserted.  The remains of the old building above was originally used for the production of naptha gas.  This was a short lived enterprise but from the mid 1800s the building was used for processing china clay.

This china clay was extracted from the upper reaches of the Bala Brook and the remains of an old tramway which head from Shipley Bridge up the side of the river valley onto the central area of the southern moors can still be seen and followed.  This is a view up the tramway.  At the top of the hill ahead is the ancient barrow at East Whitaburrow (or White Barrow).  The head of the Bala Brook is on the left and the tramway curves around towards it.

While you do need to look carefully there are some quite distinct remains of the tramway to be seen in places.  The image on the left shows the remain of the ironwork which attached the rail to the granite and quite a lot of those can be seen.  The image on the right is a “milestone” at least two of which remain.  In practice we decided this one probably should have read 1 and three quarters as the next stone which was not far away has “2 miles” on it.

While china clay was extracted here (and on other nearby areas of the moors) there was also tin mining here in the past.  Apart from the fact that the area has been dug out the heaps of small stones are very characteristic of such remains and are small spoil heaps.

While the weather that day was mostly good it was clear that there was worse weather not far away.  This is taken from the tinners remains looking south.  Ugborough Beacon is in the distance.

Once you get to the head of the valley you are on a main ridge that runs down to the south.  The ground there is not very good.  Usually wet and with long grass, it is not easy walking and feels as remote as anywhere on the moors.  The image above gives a feel of that and looks into the valley of the river Erme.  Caught in the patch of sunlight you can see the remains of pound which contains ancient hut circles.  The valley of the Erme has a number of neolithic remains and must have supported quite a population in those days.

A little further north along the ridge you get clear views of the above.  At a quick glance it might be taken as a natural hill.  However it is another spoil heap.  This time it is the china clay spoil heap at Redlake.  By comparison to the remains already passed on this walk these are relatively recent.  Work started here in 1910 and this and other parts of the ridge were worked until 1930.  Given the remoteness of this spot (there are no roads and only very rough tracks for at least 3 or 4 kilometres in any direction) it must have been a bleak spot to work.  Bleak it may be but it has a beauty to me.  We walked back to the car a different way but that will be another blog soon.

Effectively this is a follow on from my previous post from the same day’s walk here.  The photos in the previous one were orientated around the scenery on the day and this one covers some of the antiquities and remains in the Headland Warren area generally.  Walking south from [...]]]>

Effectively this is a follow on from my previous post from the same day’s walk here.  The photos in the previous one were orientated around the scenery on the day and this one covers some of the antiquities and remains in the Headland Warren area generally.  Walking south from Birch tor this was the view to the east towards Hameldon and Grimspound with the fog still rolling around.

Crossing the head of Chaw gully which is an old open tin mine on the edge of Headland Warren I arrived at the stone rows on Challacombe Down.  There are multiple rows of stone here and both Hemmery in High Dartmoor and Worth in Dartmoor describe it as a triple stone row.  To me it did lookss like there were more rows than this but I guess I am wrong.

From this image taken a little further up the rows it certainly looks like there are at least four rows of stones here.  The rows run for around 150 metres.  Birch Tor can be seen on the far right.

This is the “blocking stone” which appears to terminate the rows at the head of one row.  It is quite a large stone compared to most of the others.  While the stone is the subject of the photo to the right of it the ancient village of Grimspound can be clearly seen as a circle on the hillside.  The tor to the left of the stone is Hookney Tor and below that on the left are some open tinners working disused for many years now.

This shows a small part of the open tin workings that are called Chaw Gully.  The workings here (and there are many in the area) are some of the deepest open cast workings on the moors.  The two named mines which used shafts  lower down in the valley were worked loosely between 1750 and 1930 so this area was being mined prior to that.  It is remarkable what was achieved with tools that would seem very primitive by our standards today.

This is the remains of a building associated with the Golden Dagger mine which lies a little south of the Chaw Gully open works.  There is little doubt that tin has been extracted from the area for many years but the mine was first mentioned around 1851 (according to Tom Greeves).  In 1892 41 people were employed there and the mine was at its peak then.

The photo above is taken from just above Golden Dagger mine looking back up towards the open workings of Chaw Gully whose lines can be seen slightly right of centre.  The tor to the left is Birch Tor.

I walked back up the valley following the stream until I got to some of the remains of Vitifer mine.  Vitifer (and Birch Tor mine ) was definitively mentioned in 1750 and by 1796 40 men were employed there (Tom Greeves) .  The mine appears to have been one of the more prosperous one on the moors and there are quite extensive remains visible including some old mine shafts.  It seems likely that the work here ceased around 1925.

The stream in the valley here was used as motive power for both the mines mentioned as well as previous open cast working.  Now on what was still a cold frosty day it was rather more decorative – a pleasant end to a good walk.

In a sense this is “part 2″ of my previous post here.  The images were all taken on the same day and, while showing quite a wild part of the UK, also indicate some of  the ways the moors have been used over centuries.  The work of man can be seen [...]]]>

In a sense this is “part 2″ of my previous post here.  The images were all taken on the same day and, while showing quite a wild part of the UK, also indicate some of  the ways the moors have been used over centuries.  The work of man can be seen clearly from the above however there is some history here.  The building is known as John Bishop’s house.  John Bishop was a moorman in the nineteenth century and lived in a house on this site which, in turn may well have been built on the foundations of a far older longhouse.  The current building dates from 1912 and was actually called Swincombe farm – it is very close to the river called the Swincombe.

The track here is close to John Bishop’s house and just above the ford on the Swincombe.  It is part of an ancient packhorse route between Tavistock and Ashburton.  It was probably regularly used from the Middle Ages until 1792 when a turnpike road was opened.  There are quite a few ancient tracks across the moors dating from very early times.  In some places they are very obvious such as here and in others far less so.

The track reaches this ford on the Swincombe close to John Bishop’s house.  It crosses the river from the small opening on the right of the river to the bottom left of the image.

Taken from just below the ford on the Swincombe, this shows the current (relatively modern) foot bridge across the river at this point.  Just below it and slightly upstream stepping stones can be seen with the ford seen in the image above just upstream of the stones.  This has obviously been an important crossing point on the river for centuries.

A short distance downstream of the above are some beehives which can be seen here.  I’m not certain of the current owners but for many years these belonged to the monks at Buckfast Abbey.

Moving from the current era to far older times this hut circle is set above the valley of the Swincombe.  This will probably date from at least 3000 years ago.  While this one is not easy to see it is similar to the ones at Grimspound which are larger and better know (largely because they are far more accessible).

As can be seen it was a cold and frosty day.  There was plenty of ice around even where water was flowing.  This is the result of draining ground further up via a pipe which leads water down towards the Swincombe.  As such the hand of man over many centuries can be seen even in quite remote & beautiful parts of Dartmoor.