Dartmoor CAM Walks

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This walk: 2013-3-6. Shaugh Bowling Green, step stile, Shaugh Prior church, stream, milk churn, Shaugh Prior Cross, Inspector of Ancient Monuments marker, stone row, reave, hut circle, triangulation pillar, Luxton Tor, Hawks Tor, tongue and groove marks, Huxton Farm boundary marker, rock pan, quartz vein, WW2 anti-aircraft radar station, Beatland Corner cross.

Walk details below - Information about the route etc.

Link to Google Satellite view of the area - the car park is in the centre of the image, 1/5th of the distance up from the bottom edge.

The car park for this walk was "Shaugh Bowling Green" (labelled as Bowling Green on the map) - there are no photographs of it because it was a fairly inconspicuous green area that nobody would want to play bowls on nowadays. It has also doubled as the village green in the past. We walked from here also on 2nd December 2009.

Step stile encountered early in the walk.

For a while there was nothing outstanding, photographically speaking so here is a view of the footpath through several fields!

Shaugh Prior church, finding the spot where the photograph was taken from, the church is St. Edward, King and Martyr (no web links).

Zoomed view of the church ..... origins in the 13th Century but today's church is mostly 15th Century .....

..... and the pinnacles of the tower, with Shaugh Beacon behind, where we walked on 6th February 2013.

A panoramic view of Shaugh Prior. This was a busy, self-contained village in former times, with a blacksmith, millers, shops, inn, shoemakers, paper-maker etc. In 1153, the land around Shaugh was given to Plympton Priory. The railway came in 1859 and the bus in 1927. Click the image to see a large version.

Footpath back to Purps farm.

A stream seen along the way, at SX 54172 62965.

That's how our family sent the milk to the old Primrose Dairy at St. Erth (now long gone and turned into a tat factory for tourists, I believe).

The church, again.

Could be fun, and busy!

Shaugh Prior Cross.

Feature seen in mud, left from slow freezing overnight and formed by large crystals of hexagonal ice that can manifest dendritic branching.

A marker at SX 55425 63438: actually an Inspector of Ancient Monuments marker for antiquities in the area .....

The marker is just beside this relatively low stone, the end stone of a Bronze Age row running towards the "V" marker in the photograph. The features in this area are described in J. Butler (1994), Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities III, The South West. 48.4 Shaugh Moor field system, pages 102-105.

Another antiquity, this time a terminal reave (land divider) that appears to continue across the road as a hedge line over the next hill.

Hut circle adjacent to the reave.

Triangulation point at SX 55892 63213 (elevation 303 metres or 994 feet) near Saddlesborough Cairns.

Peter and .....

Hugh on Luxton Tor, approx. SX 559 634.

The distinctive Hawks Tor, SX 553 625

Looking through Hawks Tor at a boundary stone .....

Hawks Tor is conquered "the hard way"!

Rock pan in the top of the tor, caused by the action of water, ice and wind.

Evidence of attempted cutting of the stone by the wedge and groove method - which involved cutting slots, banging in wooden wedges, soaking them with water, and waiting for them to swell up and split the stone. This pre-dated the feather and tare method which was introduced around 1800 AD.

Committee meeting, showing the hollow interior of the tor.

One of possibly four markers for Huxton Farm ..... According to Dave Brewer (2002) Dartmoor Boundary Markers, Halsgrove, p.233, there are four of these markers, all associated with reaves and field boundaries. They are thought to relate to use of the land by Huxton Farm (which is just a cross the road from this area (SX 5479 6302).

Photograph taken to show a vein of quartz that suggests the top slab split from the main rock pile and was then slid sideways to make the shelter underneath? Or, just to enable easier cutting of the granite for masonry purposes.

RAF Hawks Tor: World War 2 Chain Home Low Radar Station (for setecting low flying aircraft) - be sure to click the Related Text link to see the story about this site (SX 55078 62280). The concrete bases are the footings of masts. Clicking the Aerial Photograph link reveals that there were two of the these masts plus other structures in the area. It must have been quite a large site. Dartmoor Magazine, Autumn 2009, Issue 96, pages 42-43 describes the site as a Chain Home site without the low or extra-low flying detection capability - this to provide long range cover for Plymouth, Exeter and the south coasts of Devon and Cornwall. It opened in May 1940 and was closed in 1943. Click here for a Google map of the area - it is a better view.

The remains of a building .....

An air-raid shelter (SX 55033 62225).

The remains of the road into the site, looking down to the "main" road from Shaugh to Meavy.

Looking the other way, up onto the moor.

Lichen on burnt gorse ......

As previous photograph.

Old cross socket stone at Beatland Corner (locally, "Binlin's Corner") ..... this was a waymarker on a route between Plympton Priory and Tavistock Abbey ......

Closer view of the socket stone.

Walk details

MAP: Red = GPS satellite track of the walk.

This walk was reached by driving from Roborough, to Bickleigh, turning right after the barracks, over a very narrow bridge (7 ft), passing two roads on the left, on to a triangular road island, turn left to Beatland Corner, turn left and park just after a small road on the left, at thee P symbol / yellow cross on the map.

Statistics
Distance - 5.71 km / 3.55 miles.