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. 

Brisworthy Stone Circle and Legis Tor

Everything went wrong at the start of this walk. For a start, we arrived in Shaugh Prior, close to our starting point, without the book of walks (although I had managed to remember the map, always the more important of the two).  Plus, the only vegetarian option the village pub had available - vegetable lasagne - had the texture of cardboard that had been boiled and then staked out in the desert for a fortnight. Plus, when I got into the church, there was absolutely no mention of illustrious poet and former vicar (twice), Robert Herrick - although this, it turned out, was on account of my having misremembered Shaugh Prior for Dean Prior, a few miles up the A38 (though I can't quite believe I did, since I actually went to primary school with a lad called Dean Prior and you'd have thought that might have acted an an aide-memoire). Plus, Ted rolled in something very stinky in the churchyard.

There was this wondrous 15th century font cover, however.

And we weren't entirely deprived of poetry, either, as there was a memorial to 'the poet of Dartmoor', Noel Carrington, who died in 1830, on the wall of the nave. According to the Church guide book, no one really knows why it's there since he was born in Plymouth and died in Bath, but it is said that he was fond of the area.





Let's have a shufti at his most famous poem, shall we?


'Dartmoor! thou wert to me, in childhood's hour, 
A wild and wondrous region. Day by day 
Arose upon my youthful eye thy belt 
Of hills mysterious, shadowy, clasping all 
The green and cheerful landscape sweetly spread 
Around my home; and with a stern delight 
I gazed upon thee. How often on the speech 
Of the half-savage peasant have I hung, 
To hear of rock-crowned heights – '

OK, this half-savage peasant has had enough. Ugh. 

We drove to a very busy Cadover Bridge with the windows down and Ted was marched into the Plym to wash away at least some of the stench.  We then proceeded to Brisworthy Plantation where we parked and set out. 

Even the easiest of walks become harder when you've forgotten the book. My partner in poetry was loath to pick his way through tufty grass in the hope of coming across half-hidden vestiges of antiquity, so we made for what we could see straight away - the stone circle, also called Brisworthy, some way lower down on Ringmoor Down. 

First, though, we passed a group of bronze age hut circles in amongst thickets of spring-flowering gorse.

By 1909, only four of the stones were still standing, and those that were still in situ - about half of the original number, it is estimated, were re-erected.  

We sat for a while and listened. The soundtrack was the same as two days earlier on Yellowmead Down - the white noise of larks, against which we could hear much cuckooing, jackdaws and the cronk of ravens. 

On the skyline, Peak Hill, Ladder Tor and the top of Sheepstor. Hard to imagine that there is a village, not to mention a large reservoir, in the fold of these hills.

Having crossed the stream at the foot of the hill, we climbed up Legis Tor, which offered varied cloud-and-shadow-strewn views, my favourite sort. Here looking over to Great Trowlesworthy Tor and Warren ...

... Hen Tor ... 

... and  up to Ditsworthy Warren House, where the bulk of the Dartmoor-set scenes in War Horse were filmed.

Looked like a few contemporary soldiers had passed this way also.

Back over the stream - a third splashing for Ted, now decidedly less pungent - and we made our way back to the car.  Short but sweet for now while my leg strengthens.  I will be back - next time with my book of walks.

Sheepstor and Yellowmead Down

Two and a half months ago, newly back on my feet following a fall and a fractured ankle, I didn't think I'd be doing this ...

... at least not so soon. But here I am, walking in my walking boots (which are perfectly comfortable despite the mass of metalware in my lower leg) on Dartmoor.  And although we chose an easy, short walk, it's still far more than I dared to hope I'd be doing so soon.  

Our starting point was Joey's Lane, an ancient packhorse way that leads from the lane that circumnavigates Burrator Reservoir up to Maiden Tor, an outcrop on the flanks of the much larger Sheepstor.  

As we climbed views opened out beneath us, including this of the reservoir.  

The other side of the tor we could see Yellowmead Stone Circle which was our destination - an easy ramble over rough grass after the exertion of climbing the tor.

If it looks a little cluttery, that's because Yellowmead is - to get a bit technical, like - a rare fourfold concentric stone circle of the early Bronze Age, of which there is only one other example on Dartmoor, on Shovel Down. 

Within the innermost circle is a hollow where the burial kistvaen once lay.

From the circle, we walked back up to the corner of the newtake wall, and along the top to the lane which led back into the hamlet of Sheepstor. On the way Ted paused for a drink at St Leonard's Well.

St Leonard is very lucky, he has a churchyard full of bluebells at the moment as well and some great 18th century headstones. 

My favourite things, though, were this 17th century foliate skull atop an hourglass, with ears of corn sprouting from empty eye sockets ...   

... and the swallows nesting in the porch. 

After a little revisit to the church itself, we went back up the lane to the car, passing a magnificent vista of the eponymous tor en route.  Joy out of all proportion to distance covered, but no matter - Dartmoor, I'm baaaaaack!