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.  

Graves, Bogs and a Load of Old Bull

For some reason I've been drawn to the western flank of Dartmoor lately and have given in to the urge even though it means a fair drive from the biscuit tin by the sea. This latest walk took me, Son the Younger and Ted out to the delightfully named Cocks Hill and back via Cudlipptown Down.

Above is the start of our route, a track leading from the idyllic village of Peter Tavy to Langstone Moor, and below the view in the opposite direction, looking out over West Devon.  The eagle-eyed might just be able to spot Brent Tor, topped by its church, on the far left.

This track leads to several landmarks.  First up, at some remove from human habitation, is this monument marking Stephens' Grave.  Having been jilted by his sweetheart, George (or possibly John) Stephens poisoned himself, and this being some 250 years ago, was buried outside of the village at the meeting of the ways so that his restless spirit wouldn't find its way back to haunt those who had done him wrong.  Strangely, this story, which is so vague and fragmentary, insists on one detail.  At the very time he was being lowered into his grave, some linen that was hanging out to bleach at Higher Godsworthy blew up into the sky and disappeared.

Like the more famous Kitty Jay, wanderers bring gifts for George - usually coins, stones, wild flowers, little crosses of rowan wood tied with red thread, etc.  This time I had a white pebble and a story for him.

Already, heart-stopping views were opening up to the south in the form of Roos and Great Staple Tor, where we'd walked a few days earlier, now spattered with sunlight and cloud, and up ahead louring Great Mis Tor.  It was sublime.

Unfortunately a ubiquity of sheep meant that Ted had to stay on the lead again.

Son the Younger asked me why some were sheared and not others, and I had no idea.  They appeared to be from the same flock, although like walked with like.  

Passing White Tor to the north, we headed for the eponymous Langstone, a menhir situated at the end of a now almost invisible stone row, and not far from the stone circle where we'd rested on our previous walk.  There were three soldiers lounging there who wanted to know what the stone was for.  Well, wouldn't we all?  Though US forces found a use for it during the war, as testified by bullet holes.

We were now striking pretty deep into this part of the moor, with the Walkham valley to our right and Tavy Cleave, which we'd explored at the beginning of June, coming into view to our left.  There is something about this sort of bleak landscape that fills me with joy, even as my companions stride out further and further ahead ... 

... that is, until a Highland bull decided that we were way too close to his harem.  I suggested to Will and Ted that we might want to detour a little, so we did - quite hastily - and eventually our outraged friend lumbered off to shout to another group of walkers.   

This is the view over to Standon Down, with distinctive Great Links Tor in the distance.  As you can see, the going was quite soft in places.

It was now time for a rest, and handily we'd reached White Barrow on the slopes of Cocks Hill, one of the boundary points of the Perambulation of 1240.  

Up ahead we could see the Lych Way leading to Beardown Tors and the unmistakeable cone of Longaford.  This is the route along which mediaeval tenants would carry the coffins of their dead, from the settlements in the middle of the moor to the Church of St Petroc at Lydford.  It is famously described as being 12 miles in fair weather and 18 in foul.

We just had ourselves to carry; even so, our route was testing.  The first thing we had to do after our rest and recuperation was to find a way across a nearby stream, which wouldn't have been at all difficult were it not for the boggy land around it.  Son the Younger tipped a boulder into this stretch and it disappeared without trace.

Fortunately, we managed to find a dry crossing point without having to walk too far out of our way, and headed north-west towards Bagga Tor.  

Here we exited the moor and walked down the lane to the hamlet of Wapsworthy, which seemed to consist mostly of ruins from various eras.  Another little rest and we rejoined the moor for a stiff climb over Cudlipptown Down, with the compensation of wonderful views north to Tavy Cleave and beyond ... 

... and, once we had struggled to the top, back over to Brent Tor and Gibbet Hill.

If you're still with me and wondering why someone's taken the trouble to quilt vast tracks of moorland, well, apparently it's down to weathering affecting the fine silty loam of this area during the Ice Age.  Whatever, it makes for pretty tricky going, particularly when you're beginning to tire.  (Looks good, though.)  

And so we were almost back to the car.  Just time to collect another skull for our collection, this one a long-dead and belichened sheep.  Then it was back to the biscuit tin, with me ignoring the quick but dull route of the A30 in favour of the more picturesque road across the moor.  Which can, at times, be very slow indeed ...