This walk: 2012-12-5. Top Tor, round houses / hut circles, Rippon Tor, Saddle Tor, Haytor, Foale's Arrishes, reeve, pixie snot, Blackslade Down longhouse, Whittaburrow cairn, Warren House Inn, Blackslade cist, Tunhill Rocks, Pil Tor, Widecombe, St. Pancras Church.
Walk details below - Information about the route etc.
Link to Google Satellite view of the area - the car park is at the centre, top edge of the view, the southern extremity of the walk is at the rocks at centre, 25% of the distance from the bottom edge.
Top Tor, SX 736 762, elevation 432 metres (1417 feet) .....
Another view of the rock pile at the left in the previous photograph.
Round house at SX 7375 7610
Zoomed view to Rippon Tor, SX 746 755, elevation 473 metres (1551 feet).
Zoomed view to Saddle Tor, SX 751 763, elevation 428 metres (1404 feet).
Haytor (Low Man) left, SX 757 770, elevation 457 metres (1499 feet).
Same round house as shown above.
Zoomed view to Haytor.
Old hedge outlines in Foale's Arrishes: Foale was the last inn-keeper of the old New Inn (long since defunct), the remains of which are possibly in the background of this photograph. "Arrish" is an old name for a cornfield or stubble field. The ruins are illustrated on a different walk on 27 May 2010, where they are described as "old building" and "Newhouse, an old inn" - possibly confused with the similar name for the original inn where the Warren House Inn now stands (across the road from).
Remains of a Bronze Age reave or field division .....
Another view.
Another hut circle (or round house) at SX 73735 75856 ..... this is a hut of the Hollow Tor North settlement, well built and 7.6 metres in diameter .....
The same hut circle with Haytor and Saddle Tor in the distance.
Similar to previous photograph.
Pixie snot, Star jelly or "White stuff" (on the map below) ..... possibly something to do with a female frog's egg-laying system going wrong or regurgitated frog spawn material from a bird or mammal? Found at SX 73537 75683. There is a explanation in a radio interview recorded on the BBC Radio 4 : Saving Species programme (from Series 1 Episode 36, broadcast 4 January 2011).
More, at SX 73563 75522. Other samples were seen at SX 73552 75484, SX 73555 75461 and SX 73569 75448.
Medieval longhouse ruins, at SX 73571 75375, beside the old road, looking uphill, described in J. Butler (1991), Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities Vol. I, 9.14 Blackslade longhouse, page 62 ..... very long, measuring 17� by 3 metres (61 ft x 14� ft). The shippon, where the animals were housed, is downhill (for drainage) and is nearest the camera.
Looking across the uphill section (for human habitation) of the longhouse .....
As previous, looking downhill.
Whittaburrow cairn, diameter 22 metres, SX 733 752 ..... the Strollers show the scale .....
Another view.
Zoomed view to the Warren House Inn, a hand-held, maximum zoom, photograph with camera shake, with Hurston Ridge behind and Assycombe Hill and the trees of Fernworthy Forest in the distance.
Blackslade cist, SX 73413 75513. (seen previously on a lone walk, 27 May 2010), described in J. Butler (1991), Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities Vol. I, 9.8 Blackslade Down cairn and cist, page 61. The cist was excavated in 1871 by the Dartmoor Exploration Committee, who found some charcoal and a few fragments of pottery .....
Another view of the cist giving some impression of the large cairn that it was covered by. There is a reeve from the cist to Tunhill Rocks.
Approaching Tunhill Rocks, SX 731 757.
Pil Tor, SX 734 759, elevation 430 metres (1410 feet).
Granite trough (micro-chipped against theft) at SX 73140 75821, showing the rock from which it was split off (right) by feather and tare .....
Another view .....
As previous photograph.
Distant view to Widecombe-in-the-Moor .....
Zoomed view (rested on a rock!) to St Pancras Church, Widecombe-in-the-Moor, known as "The Cathedral on the Moor", showing the church yard and the lich gate (left, by a tree).
Walkers disappearing over Pil Tor.
Photograph taken after Tunhill Rocks and approaching Pil Tor, looking left i.e. west or north-west-ish(?), ridges and furrows, believed to be on Wind Tor - we'll have to go back and look again.
Pil Tor in sunshine.
Rock pile at Top Tor, SX 736 762, elevation 432 metres (1417 feet).
Part ot Top Tor .....
Another section of Top Tor.
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.
The walk was reached using the Bovey Tracey-Widecombe road by some, or from the A38 using the "Widecombe" turn-off at the Ashburton - Newton Abbot turn-off. There are other approaches. Parking was at the Harefoot Cross car park, indicated by the P symbol and yellow cross at the top of the map.
Statistics
Distance - 5.01 km / 3.11 miles.
All photographs on this web site are copyright ©2007-2016 Keith Ryan.
All rights reserved - please email for permissions