Walking on Dartmoor. Earle John
rocks and you will find a round concrete plinth with a steel rod in the centre. It is said that this was the foundation for a machine gun to be set up during the war by the Home Guard to shoot at the Germans as they came round the hairpin bend on the road below!
Continue down the ridge via the path until you reach the road. It is worth turning right for 300m or so along the road until you are opposite the car parks before swinging left down to the river. You will arrive at a deep pool below some cliffs which is extremely popular in the summer as a swimming place and is often very crowded. Turn left now and follow the river downstream past several islands. Eventually the river and the road meet you and you should leave the bank and follow the road for some 300m to the fork where you turn up left, signposted Lower Town. Soon there is a steep corner by some cottages and you now leave the road and follow the waymarked track through a conifer wood. Up to now you have been following the Two Moors Way, which you leave here.
Both the 1:50,000 and particularly the 1:25,000 maps show the quite complicated rights of way where the path goes along three fields and meets the private road of Spitchwick House. By going right, along the road, to a gate into a field you will eventually find your way to Lower Town after going through another gate and following a hedge. At Lower Town turn left up the road past the 19th-century Church of St John the Baptist. This is the only long part of the walk that is on a road but soon you will arrive at Leusdon Common where you will see, away to your left, what looks like a Bronze Age menhir; in fact it was put up in the 1977 Silver Jubilee year. You might like to divert to look at it but otherwise keep going along the road, leaving the old school on your left, towards Ponsworthy with the lovely, deep, wooded valleys of the Western Webbern below you on your right. On the bend turn left through Sweaton Farm and up a lane. Follow the directions on the signposts which will take you through a gate and over a stile to a small road. Turn right along this road until the open moor is reached and where you can walk along the wall. Aim at the corners of the walls that you can see jutting out, cutting off the zigzags, until you reach the main road at Bel Tor Corner where you started the walk.
View from Bel Tor of the South Moor and Double Dart Gorge with Venford Reservior
WALK 2
Sharp Tor, Rowbrook Farm, Double Dart Gorge, Dartmeet, Dartmeet Hill,The Coffin Stone
| Start | Large car park, Bel Tor Corner, Map Ref 695732, or the large car park at the top of Dartmeet Hill, Map Ref 681733, both on the B3357 from Ashburton to Two Bridges. |
| Distance | 6.5km (4 miles) |
| Grade | Moderate |
There is the Tavistock Inn at Poundsgate or a snack bar and restaurant at Dartmeet in summer, both within a few kilometres of the starts.
Start 1. Follow the unfenced road west until it starts to turn south and then strike up to Sharp Tor ahead of you.
Start 2. Follow the path that leads towards Sharp Tor from the car park but do not go right to the bottom of Easdon Combe. Instead contour the head of the little valley, cross the stream and aim at the impressive Tor.
From the top of Sharp Tor you have magnificent views looking east and south-east right down to the coast across the South Hams; 200m (650ft) below you the Double Dart Gorge can be seen with its interlocking spurs. On the opposite side of the wooded valley you can make out the low, squat shape of Bench Tor (Benjy Tor is its old, correct name).
To descend straight down to the road leading to Rowbrook Farm is an awkward, rocky route so you will find it easier to drop back down westwards to the Row Brook and then follow the stream down to the farm.
You will need to ask permission at the farm to pass through the gate marked ‘Private. No right of way’, but there is usually never any problem. Beyond this gate, after the barn wall, you will pass an intriguing number of old farm implements including an old binder for cutting corn and tying it into sheaves.
Walk straight down the field to another gate that leads onto open land. Please do not forget to close it.
The well-defined path now descends to the right. Follow this steeply down to river level. To your left you will see the towering granite rockface of Luckey Tor. In fact this name is a corruption of Lookout Tor for it is said that smugglers used to pass this way and that the Tor made a good lookout for them to watch the Customs men. It is also known as Eagle Rock from the days when eagles wheeled and soared over Dartmoor and, I presume, built their nests here. There are some hard rock climbs on the face.
It is worth going down to the river to look at the water roaring down through a narrow cleft and into Blackpool, a deep and mysterious basin.
Now turn right and follow the path upriver on the left bank. After a while the path becomes quite difficult where the flood has washed sections of the bank away and exposed large platforms of granite. On the bend of the river and also the path, just before Combestone Island, keep a sharp lookout for a strange, stone-lined pit with long, low walls running from it. This is a type of vermin trap that drowned the predators caught in it unlike the other vermin traps (see Appendix A) which used a trip catch to shut a slate gate so that the warrener could kill the animals caught himself.
Keep along the path until you reach the point where the East and the West Dart meet. Unless you are a gregarious person or are dying for a cup of tea you will probably wish to avoid this crowded, popular tourist spot! Keep then on the right side of the wall of the enclosure and at the far end do not go through the gate but turn right up the steep path on Yartor Down. The road swings away from the path but, as you climb, look away to your left and you will see a deep track between the road and where you are. This is one of the old ways across Dartmoor which crossed the rivers by the clapper bridges and linked important villages and towns.
Dartmeet
Soon you should see a large, flat boulder beside the old track. This is the Coffin Stone and as the name suggests is where the bearers rested the coffins of people who had died in the more remote parts of Dartmoor, as they carried them on their last journey to be buried in Widecombe churchyard. You will have experienced the steepness of the hill yourself so it will be easy to imagine the back-breaking task of carrying a coffin up here. They still had 6km (3.5 miles) to go! If you look closely you will see initials and crosses carved on this historic stone.
Continue up the path to the top of the hill to where your car will be waiting for you.
If you started at Bel Tor Corner, you can walk along the road to your car or follow the first part of this walk from the car park to Sharp Tor and then down directly to Bel Tor Corner.
WALK 3
Michelcombe, Sandy Way, Holne Ridge, Hapstead Ford, Chalk Ford, Scorriton (or back to Michelcombe)
| Start | In the village of Michelcombe, Map Ref 696689. |
| Distance | 10.5km (6.5 miles) |
| Grade | Moderate |
Please be careful to park without causing an obstruction or blocking gateways. There is the Church House Inn where Archbishop Ramsey used to stay. You will pass, or not as the case may be, the Tradesman's Arms at Scorriton towards the end of the walk.
This walk starts by heading west up the lane from the small village of Michelcombe. Just by a gate a track runs off north to Hone Moor by Great Combe. You go straight on. The lane now becomes a rocky track climbing quite steeply until you reach a gate called Lane Head. It is here that