Last Exit to Trowvegas

I didn't get to the Kennet and Avon Christmas Floating Market in Bradford-on-Avon this year because Son the Younger was moving back to Bristol and needed someone to help him drive his stuff down from Rugby - that someone being me - so I always had in mind that I'd have to pop over to wherever Dru Marland was moored on the canal to pick up a few Christmas cards for me and the Friend-formally-known-as-'Er-over-the-Road. 

As it was, the printers got themselves a bit overwhelmed with work and Dru didn't manage to pick them up in time anyway, which was a shame, but it did mean there were definitely enough left for me to collect in a rendezvous with her on Bradford-on-Avon wharf. And what a beautiful card it is. I absolutely love it. 

Bradford was looking gracious, as usual, even though closer scrutiny of the picture below reveals autumn leaves, Christmas lights and early flowering cherries in blossom, which is a bit confusing and possibly slightly alarming. 

I was also in the locality for a Stanza open mic session run by Josephine Corcoran in Trowbridge, which is known by locals as Trowvegas and is the somewhat down-at-heel bigger cousin of Bradford. 

I really like it, and its 'rich industrial heritage', as they say.

The open mic was held in Bridge House, which is an Arts Centre next to the railway station. I was very taken with the venue, though I had to concentrate very hard on the poetry so as not to be completely mesmerised by the patchwork windows, of which at least two designs were familiar from my childhood home and subsequent places I've lived in. Luckily for me, the poets were good and very welcoming. 

By the time I walked back to the car, parts of Trowbridge were looking a little scary, or at the very least haunted, so I skedaddled back to the bright lights of Bristol in the embers of the day, which is about four o'clock right now ... 

... to warm my chilly fingers on this beautiful fox embellishing the cover of the latest anthology in aid of the League Against Cruel Sports to be produced by my publishers, Ronnie Goodyer and Dawn Bauling of Indigo Dreams Publishing. I'm so very proud to have two poems in it. 

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). 

Nun's Cross to Hingston Hill Stone Circle and Stone Row

Just over three years ago - blimey, that long! - we did a walk on Dartmoor that started at Norsworthy Bridge near Burrator Reservoir and took us to Down Tor stone circle and stone row (also known as Hingston Hill stone circle and stone row). It was a beautiful day and a stunning walk and I figured at the time that at the end of the row and over the hill must lie Nun's Cross and how, on another day, I should walk to the stone row and stone circle from there. So yesterday I did. 

The weather could have been brighter, although it was very lovely in that moody way Dartmoor so often affects.

And the company was good. 

In fact, it looked for a while as if there were going to be quite a few of us in our merry band. 

First, though, a rendezvous with the many-times-visited Nun's Cross, which I love for reasons listed elsewhere ...

...before we climbed the hill to Eylesbarrow, from where we could see over to Haytor Rocks and Hameldon to the east ... 

... and a sizeable section of our route to the west. The first part consisted of hacking our way over rough ground to Narrator brook, made visible by extensive tin workings, while ravens croaked overhead.

Looking over to Combshead Tor ...

... and Hingston Hill stone row and circle

View back the way we came

The stone row isn't that long but it does have presence. Here's the view from the end stone, looking back along the row to the circle ... 

... and over to Leather Tor and Sharpitor.

The view back to Sheepstor

Bronze age enclosure in the foreground with Leather Tor and Sharpitor behind

Cairn

Looking over to Newleycombe Lake 

(A lake is not a lake on Dartmoor, it's a stream.) 

Over to Devonport Leat Cross

Tinner's hut

And then Nun's Cross came back into view, and we were officially on the return stretch.

A chance for Ted to have a drink and a wallow.

We had one last stop on the way to a very crowded Chagford, where we were due to deliver maps of the three hares churches by Dru Marland, at the Warren House Inn and by Bennett's Cross, which looked wonderful with a backdrop of heather. 

Back at home the pain of distance was helped, just a little, by adding the loop of the walk to my map. Nowhere else matters as much as Dartmoor, or even comes close.