This walk: 2014-3-12. Dunnabridge, Pound, Judges Chair, Postman's Road, Brimpts North Mine, Loughtor Man, Laughter Tor, sheep measure, slotted gate posts, cow jaw, Cherrybrook Leat.
Walk details below - Information about the route etc.
Other walks in the area: 26 Oct. 2010 and 24 Nov. 2010
Link to Google Satellite view of the area - including the GPS track of the walk (compare with the Ordnance Survey map plus track below)
Looking down the road towards Dunnabridge which is over a stream that shortly joins the West Dart River just 300 metres away on the right, in this view. Dunnabridge = bridge on the Down.
View of Dunnabridge Pound Farm.
Entrance to Dunnabridge Pound - built on a Bronze Age enclosure, used for impounding livestock found pastured illegally on the moor. The animals could be released on payment of a fine, otherwise they forfeited to teh Duchy.
The Judge's Chair, said to have been moved from the Stannary Parliament at Crockern Tor: it would have taken a lot of effort?
View of the interior of the Pound, an area of 2� acres (1 acre being 70 x 70 yards).
Someone talking to The Plume of Feathers, being asked if he was friend of "Keith, the Brandy Man" !!
"I don't think we'll take it".
Looking back down the track, in the direction of the Pound ..... This is part of "Postman's Road", between Postbridge and Dunnabridge. It was ridden daily by Jack Bellamy, the postman in years gone by: see HERE (from 1957) and HERE (from 1963) for Path� News clips (you may have to endure a "commercial" first). The first video shows Laughter Hole Farm. Six days a week, he rode 10 miles, visiting 45 farms .....
Looking ahead.
Brimpts North Mine shaft .....
Another view, with water!
Approaching Loughtor Man .....
Loughtor Man standing stone, on a cairn, at SX 65221 75390 - the 7th tallest menhir on the moor. Eric Hemery in High Dartmoor says:
"Slightly west of south from the pound stands the fine menhir known as 'the Loughtor Man'. Standing 8 feet 7 inches above ground, its greatest width is 2� feet and its thickness, at base, eighteen inches, tapering to nine inches at the tip. The menhir formerly marked the termination of a double stone row, much robbed by the wall-builders, the remnant length of which Worth gives as c.657 feet. The increasing size of the stones at the south-east end of the row, including that of a fallen one, points to the former position of the now vanished grave�
A view of the terminal stone, 164 metres downhill in a south-easterly direction. Also seen on 24 Nov. 2010 .....
About 17 metres from the menhir can be found the first group of 8 small stones that are arranged in pairs, this photograph being taken at SX 65235 75377 .....
Image © J Butler
1991. Reproduced by kind permission (ref. 29 Sept. 2012).
The arrangement of the stones is described by J. Butler (1991), Atlas of Dartmoor Antiquities II, The North. 28.12 Laughter Tor stone rows and cairns cairns, pages 58-59.
Laughter Tor .....
Laughter Tor. Click the image to see a larger version.
Gathered at the Listening Post?
The Sheep Measure - a solitary stone enclosure that apparently when filled with sheep, gave a known numbers and avoided the need to count them - a soporific job?
Looking over the east wall .....
The stone posts are possibly part of a dolmen, taken with another stone lying outside the structure.
An aside: Lanyon Quoit, near Heamoor, Penzance offers a view through the stones to Ding Dong Mine - both being places of our youth!
One of the entrance stone ......
Filled-in gateway ..... at SX 6451 7583 ..... note the slot arrangements on the two posts .....
Post with a hole .....
Closer view of the hole, nothing to see ?!
Slots in the other post.
View of the avenue tor arrangement on Laughter tor. resulting from the erosion of softer rock between two harder outcrops.
"First, we had cow pie for breakfast ....." - this appears to be a cow jaw bone, indicated by the rounder basal edge: a pony jaw would be longer, not so deep and straight
Do not know about this.
A section of the Cherrybrook Leat to Brimpt's Mine.
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.
This walk was reached by driving east from Two Bridges to near Dunnabridge Pound, parking at the P and yellow cross symbols on the map.
Statistics
Distance - 5.0 km / 3.6 miles.
All photographs on this web site are copyright ©2007-2016 Keith Ryan.