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This walk: 2013-11-27. Sherberton Farm, apiary, bees, logs, bridge, planks, sheep creep, buzzard, stone circle, Galloway cattle, tors, Dunnabridge Pound, John Bishop's House, TA stone, Higher Swincombe Farm, grinding stone supports stones, Swincombe Ford Bridge, stepping stones, Gobbett Mine crazing mill, blowing house, mould stone, mortar stones, buddles, wheel-pit, adit, Forest Inn, Queen Victoria's Cross.
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Walk details below - Information about the route etc.
Link to Google Satellite view of the area - including the GPS track of the walk (compare with the Ordnance Survey map plus track below)
Bing and Google maps side by side - but no GPS track
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Similar walks were done in this area on 18 April 2007 (see section towards the end of the walk) and 22 July 2009.
Gate just along the road from the car park .....
Notice on the gate.
Gobbet Mine gert, from the 19th Century.
An isolated apiary where Buckfast Abbey bees are sometimes kept in the hives as a breeding station, known to some as The Mating Station. Used by the famous monk, Brother Adam (Karl Kehrle), 1898-1996, to breed the Buckfast bee, docile, productive and less prone to swarming .....
Zoomed view.
Collapsed adit.
Stacked logs, seasoning for planking, part of Sherberton Farm's business diversification .....
Showing the size on one log. Also .....
The same log (see the top left quadrant), by the gate, from 18 April 2007 .....
> Another view - I counted precisely 100 annual rings, although there may have been another at the bark.
If you want to contradict this, then click HERE and get counting .....
Road bridge over the river Swincombe - an old clapper bridge with parapets added, similar to Leather Tor Bridge and a few others.
Part of Sherberton Farm, an Ancient Tenement of Dartmoor, one of several very old, possibly originally Saxon, settlements, from the 1300s or possibly earlier. Also see Legendary Dartmoor's The Ancient Tenements web page.
A six-wheeled trailor!
I'm calling this "Anton's Tor" - he sells granite moorstone for various purposes.
Planked wood.
Sheep creep at SX 64406 73339.
Hold on at the front, Chris, you're going to spook that buzzard!
Zoomed view just as it flew .....
The bird settled again not far away.
Sherberton Circle, a 30-metre circle, one of the larger circles on the moor, with nine stones standing and two fallen monoliths .....
Zoomed view showing the bishop's Mitre Stone ..... with the belted Galloway cattle .....
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The circle is described in J. Butler (1993), Atlas of Dartmoor Antiquities IV, The South East. 63.9 Sherberton stone circle, pages 217-218.
View to Bellever Tor, at SX 644 764, elevation 443 metres (1453 feet).
Longaford Tor, SX 61565 77931, elevation 507 metres (1663 feet),
Combestone Tor, SX 670 718, elevation 356 metres (1168 feet)
Fox Tor, SX 62613 69820 � 3 metres, elevation 438 metres (1436 feet), near Foxtor Mire.
Laughter Tor, SX 65253 75695, elevation 420 metres (1377 feet), with Dunnabridge pound in the foregraund.
Higher White Tor, SX 619 785, elevation527 metres (1728 feet).
Longaford Tor (left) and Higher White Tor (right).
John Bishop's House, visited later.
Strolling down the lane to Swincombe Farm, of the two gateposts, the one on the left is a TA stone, marking the 19� old packhorse track between Tavistock and Ashburton. This dates from around 1669 when Plymouth Corporation accounts record �2 paid for "Moorestones on Dartmoor in the way leading from Plymouth towards Exon for the guidance of Travellers passing that way". Source: Eric Hemery (1986), Walking Dartmoor's Ancient Trackways, page 109. This source lists 33 staones, and this one is almost midway (except for one stone) .....
The "A" facing the terminal town (Ashburton) is clearly seen on this face: the other face is more difficult to see ...... SX 63989 72612.
By special request, just for one of us, click here.
Ruins of Higher Swincombe Farm, built by Tyrwhitt (pronounced "Territ") in the 18th Century as a fishing retreat, as part of his Tor Royal estate ......
As previous photo .....
As previous photo .....
Nearby trees, looking skeletal in winter conditions.
As previous photos .....
Two stones that once supported a grinding wheel for sharpening tools .....
The top of the left stone bears a recess that extends only halfway out to the left edge of the stone, the other stone has a trough-like recess right across the stone .....
Demonstrating the position of the grinding stone .....
Close-up, although in reality the knife would have been turned 90� across the much bigger stone.
Now, what was it we were looking at in the distance? A post. a man. a pony head-on ........................
Zoomed view to a dead tree.
John Bishop's House: he was a famed granite worker and did a lot of building locally, particularly walls .....
John Bishop's House .....
John Bishop's House ..... note the fireplace lintel (the house is largely fallen-in) and the lintel in the upstairs room .....
John Bishop's House ..... note the filled-in window .....
John Bishop's House ..... seen from the entrance gate?
John Bishop's House ..... the front door and porch - note the massive roof to the porch.
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