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Dartmoor photos from across the National Park

This walk: 2012-8-2. Modern boundary stones, Brent Tor, disused South Devon & Tavistock Railway, clouds, Great Links Tor, Widgery Cross, Jersey heifers, dung bonnets, Wheal Betsy, South Common Plantation, Gibbet Hill, triangulation pillar, miners' gert, mine shaft, field cairn, goats, 13th Century Church of St. Michael de Rupe, St. Michael stained glass window.

Walk details below - Information about the route etc.

Link to Google Satellite view of the area

The bend left in the road where the car park is off to the right in this photograph.

Modern boundary stone beside the road at the car park (seen at the upper right edge) ...... MT = Mary Tavy ........

B = Brentor Parish.  From Brentor Village web site (under 'Boundary changes'): "..... boundary changes in 1987 saw the area east of the 'White Lady Waterfall' on the River Lyd transferred to Lydford parish and Blackdown, up to the road, transferred to Brentor from Mary Tavy parish."

A view of Brent Tor - much more below.

Take the National Cycle Route 27, passing Burn Cottage. The River Burn runs down on the left, and rises at the far end of this path, it runs through Mary Tavy and into the River Tavy.

Across this meadow, under the trees, is a disused railway, part of the South Devon & Tavistock Railway: "The northern section of the Branch, between Tavistock and Launceston, in Cornwall, was officially opened on Thursday June 1st 1865, although public services did not begin until Saturday July 1st.  It, too, was worked by the South Devon Railway.  Intermediate stations were opened that day at Mary Tavy & Blackdown, Lydford, Coryton, and Lifton."

History of Mary Tavy - The Railway Station: "The first line to reach Mary Tavy was Brunel's broad gauge railway in 1865. It was the furthest west that the railway had got at the time and was South Devon's northen extension from Tavistock to Lydford. It then headed west down the Lyd valley to Launceston and beyond. (These early trains ran on track that was just over 7 feet wide. Although designed by Brunel, the railway was run by the South Devon Railway until financial difficulties in 1876 lead to a takeover by the Great Western Railway. Brunel's broad gauge network was converted in 1892 to run on the narrower 'standard' 4ft 8.5 ins gauge introduced by Robert Stevenson.). When a rival railway company, the London and South Western Railway, extended their Okehampton line south to Tavistock in 1874, Mary Tavy got a second line but there was no station. Those that wanted to go to Okehampton by train would have had to change lines at Lydford where both railway companies had stations."

Another boundary stone can be seen in the mid-foreground .....

The (modern) boundary stone located at the eastern corner of the Burn Cottage property ..... MT = Mary Tavy .....

B = Brentor.

The stream at SX 5008 8249, the path runs left-right across this very shallow 'ford'.

A closer view of the old railway line.

The mix of clouds on a summer's day with heavy showers: medium level altocumulus (6,000-20,000 ft, highest here), fair weather white cumulus and low-level cumulonimbus (rain-bearing) .....

Stratocumulus (lower level cumulus but forming a layer) with higher level altocumulus.

Great Links Tor, SX 551 867, elevation 586 metres (1922 feet), with Widgery Cross (on Brai or Brat Tor) at right edge.

Jersey heifers.

Who are you looking at?

Dung Bonnets (Bolbitius vitellinus), a coprophilous fungus that breaks down dung. These are larger and more delicate than Dung Roundheads (Stropharia semiglobulata).