Dartmoor CAM Walks

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This walk: 2012-9-19. Apple crusher, Middle Staple Tor, Great Staple Tor, Roos Tor, Great Mis Tor, Little Mis Tor, Potato or Plague Market, hut circles, dwelling, Chris Swanson memorial, Forest of Dartmoor boundary stone, River Tavy, River Tamar, Walkham Valley, Over Tor, rabbit bury, very large plate.

Walk details below - Information about the route etc.

Link to Google Satellite view of the area - Great Mis Tor is at centre-top. The car park is on the bottom, 1/4m the way in from the left.

Another walk was done the following day in the newtake / warren just west of Great Mis Tor, in the Walkham valley, looking at three blowing houses and a medieval longhouse.

Abandoned apple crusher that would have run upright around the circular trough of an cider/apple press.

Middle Staple Tor (left), Great Staple Tor (centre) and Roos Tor (right): Shillapark Farm is opposite..

Looking up the hill to Great Mis Tor, with Little Mis Tor towards the right (on the skyline).

There are some substantial hut circles in this area ..... the area was known as the Potato or Plague Market during the Black Death (bubonic plague) years 1348-1350.

Hut circle ..... the area is described by J. Butler (1991), Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities II, The North. 30.9 Merrivale Bridge East, pages 72-75..

Another large hut circle with a human scale .....

Some walls of the hut circles appear to have three rings of stones.

Remains of a two-roomed dwelling built 1832 (by who, and when abandoned?), with garden plot abutting on to the road. SX 5565 7504.

Another view of the building. The Rev. Bray intervened with the occupier who was destroying hut circles for the stones to build with, persuading the man to desist and suggesting he might make money by conducting tourists around the site.

View to Great Mis Tor.

Middle Staple Tor, Great Staple Tor and Roos Tor (left to right).

Zoomed view back to the car park.

Over Tor Gert, where tinners probably removed the overburden by running water down the hill?

Roos Tor, with the Bronze Age Great Western Reave running down the hill, towards the bottom-right.

Little Mis Tor .....

Little Mis Tor with Great Mis Tor behind.

Another aspectr of Little Mis Tor.

Great Mis Tor.

Inscription on the east face of Little Mis Tor, a cross and main memorial which says: To Chris Swanson 1980 Always Here.

An unmarked Forest of Dartmoor boundary stone, at the southern edge of the Great Mis Tor rocks.

Zoomed view to the railway bridge over the River Tavy, where it joins the River Tamar. Towards the top left are the road and Brunel's railway bridges across the River Tamar - the white "blobs" are the covers where Brunel's bridge is presently being cleaned.

Zoomed and cropped view to the Eddystone lighthouse, 14 miles from Plymouth sea front, about 28 miles (38 km) from here. The main lighthouse and the short stump of Smeaton's Tower can be seen to its right.

Approaching Great Mis Tor, with no red flag flying .....

..... it should be perfectly safe today .....

Another Pixies Cave - on the south-western side of the tor.?

Closer view.

Interesting rock pile.

Looking down the Walkham valley towards Plymouth.

Looking east, the results of peat cutting for naphtha extraction at the old prison, with Beardown Tors behind ......

A closer view.

Relaxing in the sun, for a change!

Going back down the hill towards the cars.

Merrivale, complete with the quarry.

Zoomed view to Middle Staple Tor.

Feature at SX 56210 75868, one of a long row of hut circles shown on the map .....

The next hut circle going down hill, SX 51650 75806 .....

As previous photograph.

Looking ahead to Over Tor, SX 5587 7538 .....

Closer to Over Tor ..... this large rock pile being known as Church Rock .....

Rocks around Over tor .....

Merrivale, again .....

Is there something to see?

Rock pan on Over Tor, known as Mrs Bray's wash hand basin.

A rabbit bury, SX 55750 75194, one of several but these (small buries) were probably sporting buries for shooting and coursing although the area is marked on the map as Merrivale Warren and there was a lot of tin activity here. There are questions about this because there was also a lot of tin mining activity in this valley (see the three blowing houses visited the following day, 20 Sept. 2012).

Now that it a helping of fish and chips - the plate is almost as wide as the table!

Walk details

MAP: Red = GPS satellite track of the walk.

This walk was reached by parking on the B3357 Tavistock-Two Bridges road, just east of Merrivale, at the P symbol with the yellow cross on the map.

Statistics
Distance - 5.62 km / 3.49 miles