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This walk: 2013-2-6. Shaugh Bridge china clay drying sheds, River Meavy, River Plym, settling tanks/resrvoirs, West Down, pony, spruce cones, Plymouth Hoe big wheel, Princetown, North Hessary Tor, Shaugh Beacon, Dewer's footprint, pine trees, Trowlesworthy Warren Farm, pound, badgers' sett, bracket fungi, china clay slurry pipe.

Walk details below - Information about the route etc.

Link to Google Satellite view of the area - the car park is located just below the minus sign on the magnification scale; the walk went slightly off the right-side edge of the map but at a lower scale, the landscape is marred by the china clay pits and we're not showing them today!

Having arrived early for the walk, I took a few photographs around the area of the car park .....

Shaugh Bridge Drying Sheds - china clay flowed two-miles in a suspended slurry in a pipe from near Cadover Bridge to settling pits and then to be dried out here between 1895 and 1950. This area was cleared from its overgrown condition in 2009 by Dartmoor Preservation Association ..... the photograph shows the the loading bays: the clay was dried by heat from fires in kilns - the workers had to wear wooden clogs. The clay was transferred to the railway at Shaugh Platform

The new-in-2010 footbridge across the River Plym .....

The confluence of the River Meavy (left) and the River Plym (right) ..... taken from the road bridge .....

Looking downstream from the road bridge, the River Plym.

View from the top of the steps beside the driers, the rivers are seen (white) in the background, beyond the car park.

A coming-together of clay slurry channels above/before the drying area .....

Inside a rectangular reservoir above the drying kilns .....

STARTING THE WALK: Further up the hillside, a circular settling tank or reservoir for the clay slurry (the pipe that it travelled in is seen at the end of this walk).

Self-explanatory notice.

As previous photograph.

Halfway up a long ascent - mountaineering terms today: see last four photos!

Two minutes after the previous photograph, at SX 5361063505, where one photograph of trees in this area looks much like the other ten photographs that aren't being shown here!

Trees with larger rocks.

Trees in a long rectangular building of unknown function, close to the previous photograph.

Hello, pony.

Trees and rocks, it's an interesting commentary around this area.

These elongate cones are probably from Norway Spruce, laid out for a squirrel's breakfast.

Nelson: "I see no ships"
Miss:    "I see no tower"

" but I see the big wheel on Plymouth Hoe, and if you look carefully, you might see Eddystone lighthouse, 14 miles from Plymouth sea front!"

The tower of Shaugh Prior Church - St Edward, King and Martyr.

Zoomed view from Shaugh Beacon to Princetown, with Sharpitor (extreme left), Leather tor (centre left) and Sheep's Tor (right) .....

The TV mast at North Hessary Tor, with Leather Tor (left).

The group on Shaugh Beacon .....

See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil - it was also cold enough for brass monkeys (an educational, naval link, Jim). 

A feature just below the beacon .....

One of Dewer's cloven footprints - if there isn't a good story, I just make them up, y'know - except there is some truth in this one.

Looking back at Shaugh Beacon.

There was going to be a link to "On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine" but having heard it .....

In the pines - click on 2:25, the second track on the LP, the first track is for the Tavistock Jivers. 

Experimental photograph, using manual mode and 1/1000th second to freeze the pine in the strong, windy conditions, it worked well.

Zoomed view to Trowlesworthy Warren Farm.  

More pines, reminiscent of Tyrolean woods.

In the middle of a Bronze Age pound, with a hut circle, SX 54690 63815.

Inside North Wood .....

Entrances into a badger sett .....

The location, with backlit, moss-covered stones.

Another sett entrance with a GPS unit to show the scale.

Bracket fungi on a beech tree, possibly Ganoderma applanatum, or G. adspersum.

Zomed view, quite a height up the tree .....

Another bracket fungus on a branch on the ground.

The Dewerstone (Legendary Dartmoor web site) .....

The Dewerstone (Rockfax web site) .....

The Dewerstone (ukclimbing web site) ..... be amazed .....

Zoomed view to the highest buttress .....

A climber has made it to the top ..... sorry, summit, in keeping with the mountaineering terminology in use today: see last four photographs!

Part of the pipe that carried china clay slurry from clay workings at Wigford Down, near Cadover Bridge .....

Another view.

A certain young lady climbed to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro last Monday, here are a few photographs taken in The White Thorn in Shaugh Prior at the end of our lunch: unfortunately several people had left the scene .....

An engraved glass photo-frame containing a photograph from the summit, transmitted back to the Trek & Mountain magazine Facebook page ..... the photo can be replaced with something of her own choice .....

The engraving, including an image of Kilimanjaro ..... there was a lot of emailing to get the date right because it was wrong somewhere online .....

Well done!

Walk details

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.

Parking was at the  P  symbol/yellow cross, at Shaugh Bridge (SX 53277 63678). Access by car is via Roborough to Bickleigh, driving straight through the village and turning left just after the 42 Commando barracks to Shaugh Prior. Follow this road for about 1� miles to the bridge. Drive over the bridge and turn immediately left into the car park.