Dartmoor 365

We parked the car in the car park just passed The Warren House Inn and took the marked track the wound gradually down to the river.  We had seen the Four Aces previously and photographed them from Bennetts Cross, but we were much closer today and got clearer photos. There were ruins of mine buildings near the river.  This was Vitifer mine. We crossed the river on a small bridge made of two large granite stones and walked down parallel to river until we came to a gate.  At times the track became a stream, but it was not too deep so we were able to walk through it.  Once passed the gate we were in Golden Dagger Mine.  First we came to Dinah's House, then the Engine Room and finally the Buddle.  Having seen this we turned round and made our way back to the car. Dinah's House Wheel Pit in Engine House  Buddle

It was a beautiful sunny late October day so we had to make the most of it and go walking on Dartmoor.  We parked in a car park just passed Postbridge and walked up the track to Merripit Hill.  It was a gentle climb but after a while the track turned into a stream.  We were able to find a path through the heather that kept parallel to the stream and came back to the track before reaching the top of the hill.  This would surely be a lovely place to visit when the heather is out. We did not see any of the pigs mentioned in D365, the only animals were sheep and ponies. I have not been able to find out what the remains of the builder were that the horses were feeding around.  We could see Fernworthy Forest in the distance, but we wanted to go on to another walk so we turned around.  It made a very nice short walk.

We parked the car just past the junction with the prison road that leads from Princetown.  We walked down to the house on the right and followed the path to Great Mis Tor that we could clearly see in the distance.  To begin with we walked along a track but when it ended the path was very wet in places and we had to make frequent diversions to get past streams of water. Eventually we reached the summit of the tor where there were lots of outcrops of rocks.  We spent some time looking around these searching for the rock basin called 'The devil's frying pan'.  Although my OS map told me we were in the right area we were not able to locate it. As the walk up to the tor had been difficult because of the streams we decided to walk back the more defined path.  Some way on we realised it was taking us a long way from where our car was parked, so we cut across the grass and came out onto the road by the pump house.  We still had some time to walk along...

As we drove from Buckland in the Moor to Widecombe we stopped at Blackslade Down where we could see the remains of the old Inn.  The line of willows were still there but we did not venture into the mire to look for Sundew. After lunch at Widecombe and a wander around the village, finding the Saxon Well, we drove on passed Southcombe Cross.  The signpost has now been corrected, but you can see that originally 'Bridge' was spelt wrong. Saxon Well at Widecombe We drove on to Dunstone where we saw the cross.  A plaque said it had been moved to its original position in 1980.  Consequently we did not notice the school or Manor.

On our way to Buckland in the Moor  we passed Hook's Cross then Owlacombe Cross.  We looked for hazel nuts and the various fruit mentioned by JH in Dartmoor 365 but could not find any. Approaching Buckland in the Moor we saw the thatched cottages.  We stopped at the entrance to East Gray Woods and decided to stop and have a walk along the river.  It was very pretty with waterfalls all along.  We also spotted some interesting fungi. We then drove on the church where we saw the clock with unusual face.  Inside there was lots of history.  The 12th century font looked in very good condition, but the 15th century screen was in need of renovation.

We were on our way to Exeter Airport to fly to a cruise around Spain and Portugal, but we couldn't resist stopping off en route to bag a couple of D365 squares. First we drove past Wheal Exmouth and parked briefly to photograph the chimney and surrounding buildings. We then drove on to Christow.  We approached the village from the top and to begin with could not find the church.  We did however find an attractive thatched pub that looked very old. A local resident directed us down the road to the church where we saw the stone commemorating those killed by the roundheads.