A montage of three photographs of the transmitter, at SX 5781 7420 (in case you have difficulty finding it!) - this is a 196 metres (643 ft) high guyed mast.

Another view.

North HessaryTor behind some fences and mast-anchoring points.

Arquiva sign on the building. See also Link 1, Link 2.

Detail of an anchoring point.

Close-up of a section of the mast - how do they climb it?

PCWW incised on North Hessary Tor as a marker for the Burrator Reservoir water catchment area .....

Showing the scale .....

North Hessary Tor, SX 578 742, elevation 517 metres (1696 feet), plus trig. pillar - PCWW inscription is found on the west facing slope in the centre of the photo, at approx. eye level. 

Interplay of tor and mast features.

The base of the trig. pillar.

Transmitter building seen from the top of North Hessary Tor.

Trig. pillar and transmitter.

Approaching our first TA (Tavistock/Ashburton) waymarker stone on the medieval/post-medieval packhorse track, at SX 57230 73785 - up the slope from Yellowmead Farm. Others were passed at, after: SX 57100 73841 and SX 56785 73923. These marked the path between Ashburton and Tavistock, two important stannary towns. Described by R Hansford Worth (1967), Worth's Dartmoor, David & Charles, Newton Abbot, pages 397-402. It seems probable that they date from 1699-1700, according to an item in the Receiver's Book of Plymouth Corporation. They probably date from before 1810 because they were split by the old style of slots (i.e. wedge and groove method) and not by drilling holes for the feather and tare method that was in use by 1820. There is an item in the Plymouth Corporation Receiver's Book 1699/1700 stating: "Item paid towards defraying the charges for putting vpp Moorestones on Dartmoor in the way leading from Plymouth towards Exon for guidance of Travellers passing passing that way the summe of �2-0-0." It is possible that wool was taken to the large mills in Ashburton, established in 1800 (Helen Harris, 1968, Industrial Archaeology of Dartmoor, David & Charles, page 119).

Closer view, in the rain.

Three-sided granite structure, seemingly "worked", at SX 57008 73880, a fireplace or doorway? Although, there seems to be little other loose or surface moor stone in the area.

Another TA stone .....

"A" signifying Ashburton is behind us .....

"T" facing Tavistock.

Along the track from Foggintor quarry towards Yellowmead Farm (seen ahead, left of the track),these are the granite sleepers of Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt's horse-drawn tramway (Royal Assent granted in 1821, opened 1823), complete with grooves and fastening holes to hold the rails - the old tramway from Foggintor Quarry .....

Foggintor aka Hill aka Royal Oak Quarry - started by 1820�s from gathering moorstone for the building of Princetown Prison by Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt, owned by Pethick Brothers by 1900, in its heyday in the 1840�s it employed hundreds of men, it closed in 1906 and the operations concentrated on the more modern Swell Tor.  Hill Cottages, at the quarry � by 1850 there were 10 or 11 cottages here, all had very productive gardens, washing lines and privies on the Big Tip.

Nelson's Column is made from Foggintor granite. It was also used for kerbs and drains in Plymouth, the breakwater, the defensive forts around Plymouth and the corbels for repairing London Bridge in the late 1890s. The quarries ceased working  in 1937. Source: Crispin Gill (1970), Dartmoor - A New Study, David & Charles, page 132.

Another TA stone incorporated into a now-blocked gateway at SX 56660 74033 .....

The whole gateway, with an iron gate hanger seen on the left gate post. There is apparently another TA stone in a similar position at the opposite end of the farm property (Worth, map on page 399).

The heads of two old iron nails/spikes driven into the sleeper presumably to anchor either the rail or a chair that held the rail.

The Cake Stone, at SX 56711 74115 (Battenburg).

As previous photo.

The explosives store at SX 56447 74616, for West Mead Quarry, with Four Winds behind.

The entrance, with no metal used as a safety measure against sparks - sparks and gun powder do not mix well except explosively!.

Another view of the explosives store.

West Mead Quarry - SX 56505 74653 with the trees at Red Cottages in the background. The quarry was owned and worked by Eric Green and his brother until 1966. Eric started at the quarry when he was 16 and it was owned by an uncle. They worked eight-hours a day, using a 4 lb lump hammer. Latterly, they brought granite from Merrivale and worked it here, making headstones and kerb stones. Later, they bought a compressor to make the hard work easier. Eric Green maintained that granite DOES have a grain and that it always beds parallel to the ground, but that it can be split in most directions.

Another view.

Ruined blacksmith's shop at the quarry.

Looking along the front gates of Red Cottages: there are four gateways along this wall into the old Red Cottages that once housed quarrymen, demolished in 1953 (the rubble being used in building the nearby North Hessary Tor TV transmitter) ..... I was informed recently that someone who lived here as a child was the wife of the author, Dave Brewer, who produced the book, Dartmoor Boundary Markers. 

At Red Cottages, an old Christmas tree, perhaps - as is the large Norway spruce at Four Winds, planted by the schoolmaster when it was a school?

The stream from which the Longash leat is taken off, where it (i.e. the stream) passes under the main road (B3357).

Walk details

MAP: Red = GPS satellite track of the walk.

© Crown copyright and database rights 2012  Ordnance Survey Licence number 100047373
Also, Copyright © 2005, Memory-Map Europe, with permission.

This walk was reached by parking in the old quarry at the entrance to the Yellowmead Farm track at SX 56742 74988 (between Merrivale and the prison rooad turnoff), between Tavistock and Two bridges, at the  P  symbol with the yellow cross on the map.