Dartmoor CAM

This walk: 2012-5-30. Great Western Reave, Walkhampton Common Reave, Stenlake Road, Plymouth & District Railway (P&DR), granite setts, cattle creep, Routrundle, hut circle, plate-layers' hut, poetry plaque, hawthorn hedge, Peekhill Farm, St. Mary's Church Walkhampton, stone row, white milkwort, pony, Sharpitor, mile stone, PCWW 1917 stones.

Walk details below - Information about the route etc.

Link to Google Satellite view of the area - the car park is at centre bottom of the map, beside the "B3212" label.

Up, up, not quite up in a balloon!

A section of the Great Western Reave near Sharpitor: "The longest reave identified on Dartmoor is known as the Great Western Reave, which, although incomplete, stretches over 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) from beyond White Tor in the north, over Roos Tor, through the Merrivale archaeological landscape and Foggintor granite quarries to its southern end, east of Sharpitor, by the side of the B3212 road." Also in the area is the Walkhampton Common Reave.

Stenlake Road, a paved track that once connected Meavy valley farms and Walkham valley farms. Well constructed and maintained - William Bickle was paid 1 penny per yard in 1823 to repair the drains: looking down to the old railway track, with Ingra Tor, SX 555 721, elevation 339 metres (1112 feet) behind.

Looking back up the track .....

Zoomed view to the track coming over the ridge from the car park.

Track bed of the Plymouth & District Railway (1823-1883) was converted to standard gauge and steam, running until 1956. Ingra Tor behind.

One of the old granite setts from the P&DR being used in the construction of a bridge so that livestock can cross under the line i.e. in a "cattle creep".

The Strollers standing on what is a presumably filled-in cattle creep.

Zoomed view to Routrundle down in the trees. Documented in the 1400s but a very old site and on the site of a Bronze Age settlement. It bears the inscription "ML 1866" after being bought and restored by Massey Lopes, it was then farmed by various tenants, it fell into disuse, was leased by an Outward Bound organisation. Bought and restored in the late 1990s .....

Google Earth image of Routrundle (bottom edge) with a Bronze Age pound and reconstructed round house in the middle.

Gathered in a hut circle at SX 55307 71366.

Doorway stones at the hut circle.

Base of an old platelayers' hut on the railway.

Aha! Life in a cattle creep .....

One of five numbered poetry plaques in the Walkhampton area. Another plaque was seen on a walk on 4 March 2009 .

Another granite sett used in the construction of a bridge/cattle creep.

A line of hawthorn trees in a hedge.

Looking towards Peekhill Farm for the route of the old P&DR route, believed to run along the hedge running left-right halfway down the photograph.

Zoomed view to St. Mary's Church, Walkhampton.

A gateway on the route .....

Another cattle creep.

Stone row, centred at SX 5503 7071. This is the blocking stone at the lower, south-west end, discovered in 1963, 132 meters in length. The stones run up through the gorse bush .....

Similar view .....

View of the blocking stone with Walkhampton Church.

White variety of milkwort, believed Polygala serpyllifolia, (leaves are opposite at base of stem, likes wet, acid ground = Dartmoor). Otherwise, Common Milkwort, Polygala vulgaris, (the leaves are not opposite, likes dry neutral ground).

A pair of stones in the centre region of the row .....

Terminal cairn at the end of the stone row.

Pony at the roadside by Goadstone Pond with Sharpitor in the background.

Stones beside the road near Goadstone Pond en route to the car park: the milestone (nearest the camera) is inscribed "Plymouth 12 miles Prince Town 3 miles" .....

The other stone is a Plymouth Corporation Water Works boundary stone marking the catchment area of Burrator Reservoir .....

Across the road is another PCWW 1917 stone, with Sharpitor behind.

Sharpitor, SX 560 703, elevation 410 metres (1345 feet).

Walk details

MAP: Red = GPS satellite track of the walk.

This walk is reached very simply with car parking at the P symbol and yellow cross at the car park beside the B3312 road from Yelverton to Princetown, at SX 560 708.

Statistics
Distance - 4.78 km / 2.97 miles