Feathers from the Angel's Wing

When the archangel comes knocking, you should pay attention. 

So yesterday Dru and I found ourselves on our first proper jaunt of 2019. Our destination ... Dartmoor.

St Michael de Rupe, atop Brentor, to be precise. Here he is, in all his saturnine glory.

It's a hefty climb up to the church, but always worth it. Yesterday the view was like its angel, moody and magnificent.

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Also, windswept and interesting.

Since I broke my leg a few years ago, descents are trickier than ascents because I don't trust my bones to hold me up anymore, but there were few pockets of ice left after last week's snow and it was mostly just squelchy.

Squelchy enough for frogs, in fact, but the croak overhead was the day's first raven.

We then headed for St Petroc's at Lydford. 

I like its setting best. Next door to the infamous Lydford gaol ... 'the most annoius, contagious and detestable place within this realm' ...

... in front of a small Norman hill fort ... 

... and with a fabulous, round churchyard, which suggests a religious site dating back to pre-Christian time.

Before this 13th century building, there was a wooden Saxon church which was attacked and burnt down in 997AD by the Vikings. 

A runic stone was set up in 1997 to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of the attack. A passing villager told us how he had seen silver coins minted at Lydford in a museum in Stockholm, and we took a moment to lament Brexit. 

Dru's snowdrop photo

The interior of the church is lovely, but possibly not as lovely as the interior of the Castle Inn, which is one of my favourites.  Dru was keen to see the modern stained glass of the three hares and the green man, so we popped in to have a coffee and avail ourselves of their facilities.

Next, we headed south to Tavistock and then up up up across the moor to Chagford, which always involves a stop at Bennett's Cross with its fabled view, which today was decidedly murky.

Here's St Michael again, this time in his church in Chagford. He's busy smiting the dragon, of course. Dru rather naughtily suggested that he might be using a flamingo to do it.  

Then it was off down some of Devon's rather hair-raising lanes to a meeting about putative involvment in a project combining art and poetry and walking on Dartmoor and archangels, with a possible side-order of local cider. More about tht n due corrse, perjsaps (fungrs crssde). 

Pensive Dartmoor

Local tradition has it that the Meavy oak was planted in the reign of King John which makes it just about 960 years old.  

It was even older by the time our dinners came, but The Royal Oak is a handsome pub and the cider, from Sandford Orchards, was good so it wasn't too much of a hardship to wait.  

We read Active Dartmoor, which about cycling, kayaking, abseiling and running across the moor. and made me long for Pensive Dartmoor, about poetry, art, folklore, walks and recipes for cider bread pudding.

Once fed and cidered, we waddled out over Yennadon Down beneath circling buzzards.  It was hot and we were sweaty but the views were worth the exertion.  Here's Cox Tor, Great Staple Tor and Great Mis Tor.  

And here's St Michael de Rupe atop Brent Tor in the far west of the moor.  

And look, we were quite Active (for Pensive people).  

It started to rain while we were in Peekhill Plantation so we sheltered under an accommodating sycamore.  

It was very green apart from where it was orange.  Autumn Is Coming!  

At Lower Lowery (I love Dartmoor names!) we dropped down to Burrator Reservoir. (Here with Sheeps Tor in the background.)

Now I dislike reservoirs on the moor, with their conifers, rhododendrons - 'ugly as a brass-band in India' as Ted Hughes puts it - and tarmac, but I admit this configuration of clouds and water was quite serene.  

I've always wanted a garden with a wall with a door in it.  Somehow I don't think I'll ever get one, but it's good to pass other people's and wonder what lies behind.  

Our walk over, we headed back across the moor, stopping off at Dunnabridge to take a photo of an old sign that isn't there anymore.  

It looks like everything is begining to rust ... 

Between The Devil and the Deep Black Mire

Look, a raven launching itself from Boulters Tor.

And a chatter of jackdaws just up the track.

And a swallow swooping over the tangle of streams at Wedlake, below White Tor.  

And in between, the view back down the track to Peter Tavy ...

... and over to St Michael de Rupe on top of Brent Tor.  

We'd also stopped for a chat with John (or George) Stephens at his grave ...

... leaving him a little bunch of hawkweed and heather, and a black feather, wrapped in sheep's wool, secured with a few strands of hair and weighed down with a glittery white granite chip.  Though upon reflection, maybe the lucky heather was a bit late.  Still, maybe the feather will help his spirit fly ...  

... though not back home, obviously; that's why his grave is at this crossroads.  

After the long gentle descent to the bottom of the valley came the climb up the slopes of Roos Tor.

It started out benignly enough ... 

... but soon became a sort of attrition.  

Every now and then we had to have a little rest ...

 ... but we made it in the end. 

This is the massive logan or rocking stone at the summit. 

From Roos Tor there is a great view up to the twin stacks of Great Staple Tor, like a giant granite gateway ... 

... and over to Cox Tor.  To both of which I was planning to walk. 

But then I told the Northerner about the stone circle on Langstone Moor, and the eponymous standing stone, and suddenly that was where we were headed instead, along the wet and sloshy track you can just see heading north into nowhere.

Looking over the Walkham valley to Great Mis Tor

A skylark - silent and just visible 

Langstone Moor Stone Circle

Between the stone circle and the standing stone, which was our next point on the walk, the ground is so wet as to constitute mire.  

It's prudent to head north to a relatively dry track, rather than pick your way over them. Having done that, we would be able to make our way past the foot of White Tor and Boulters Tor, back down to my car which was parked in a disused quarry just above Peter Tavy. 

So here is the standing stone, circled in purple, towards which we must progress ... and alongside it, ringed in red, a colossal Highland bull, standing and staring in our direction. 




I know this bull. I met him last year, not too far from this very spot.  He is the size of a static caravan.  The Northerner and I retired to the mire to have an intense discussion of tactics.  

My companion wanted to go back the way we had come and then pick our way down the valley, which would have involved a fair bit of traversing of mire.  I wanted to risk passing close-ish to the bull, on the grounds that the bull probably won't get you but the mires always will.  It wasn't much of a choice, however.  

In the end the bull wandered back up the hill a bit and we reached the standing stone with nothing worse than squelchy feet.  

This sheep wasn't as lucky - now just foam and bones. 

But we were busy putting mucho distance between us and the bull and look, here's that funny quilty ground again, which is so characteristic of this part of the moor.  

Give me Dartmoor Hill Ponies over bulls anyday.