Dartmoor CAM

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This walk: 2014-6-12. New Waste car park, old water works buildings, large Bronze Age settlement, crows, PRDC marker post, Piles Copse, Heath bedstraw, finger dumps, Downing's House, River Erme, weir, blowing house, Hare's-tail cotton grass, rain gauge, round house, enclosure, Hillson's House, Stalldown stone row.

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)

Previous walks in this area: 5th March 2007, 6th Nov. 2008, 22nd Sep. 2010 & 31st July 2013.

Entering the New Waste car park for the last time?

Notice that terminates access for cars and riders .....

Closer view.

The old access notice.

The stream that runs to Brook Barn and beyond.

Clapper bridge over an old stream (leat?) at the south corner of the old Water Treatment Works (now, a private property).

The old water works buildings.

Part of the Stalldown south-east settlement .....

Image © J Butler 1993. Reproduced by kind permission (ref. 29 Sept. 2012).

This area has one of the largest Bronze Age settlements in the Erme valley, being about 1 km in extent, and described in detail by J. Butler (1993), Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities IV, The South East. 54.4 Stalldown South-east 1 (fig. 54.3, pages 41-42). This settlement show the density of round houses that existed in some areas during the Bronze Age period.

Looking at one of two flocks of crows that seemed to be involved in a dispute with another, nearby flock - the dispute was like a meeting between the mods and rockers of the 1960s!

Crows.

PRDC- marker for the catchment area to do with the water works/reservoir nearby, Plympton Rural District Council?
"On April 1st 1967 part of Plympton St Mary Rural District Council was absorbed into the City of Plymouth. What remained of the Plympton St Mary RDC was transferred in to South Hams District Council in 1974, as a result of the Local Government Act 1972." Source: former plymouthdata.info/Plympton.htm web site.

Remains of a round house (hut circle).

Part of an enclosure wall.

First view of Piles Copse, south end,

Heath Bedstraw, Galium saxatile.

Piles Copse, central section ......

Piles Copse, north end.

Dartmoor CAM movie. TIP .....

press F11 to make more "Full Screen", remembering to press it again to regain Normal Screen.

A panorama of Piles Copse.

Click the photo to download

File size: 2.1 MB.
Length 12 secs

Looking down in tinners' finger dumps between us and the River Erme.

An item that was missed on this walk was Downing's House, SX 63940 62928: this is an old tinner's hut, from the day's of tin streaming, situated beside Downing's Brook. Eric Hemery (1983), High Dartmoor, Robert Hale, London, page 251. It was also once known as Smuggler's Hole and was one of the places on Dartmoor where, by virtue of their remoteness, were used to store illicit or smuggled alcohol. This photo is from 31st July 2013.

There's not a lot of room in there!

Approaching the weir on the River Erme .....

Another view ..... Click the image to see a larger version.

An operations hut .....

The weir itself .....

Water enters a chute .....

The water exits here, having apparently undergone an aeration process (see the movie) .....

Dartmoor CAM movie. TIP .....

press F11 to make more "Full Screen", remembering to press it again to regain Normal Screen.

Water passing through the chute in the weir, where it seems to feed back on itself effectively aerating itself.

Click the photo to download

File size: 4 MB.
Length 23 secs

Close-up of the weir.

The weir pool.

Looking up river from the weir.

Looking along the weir construction.

The weir, again.

Ditto.

Looking down the valley to a control valve area .....

Closer view .....

Looking back at the weir.

Another view up the valley.

Blowing house, SX 6399 6336, across the river .....

Zoomed view, as close as we approached!

Hare's-tail cotton-grass (Eriophorum vaginatum) with a single seed head, the alternative is Common cotton grass, Eriophorum angustifolium, with several seed heads.

Large hut circle, SX 63800 63071, seen while climbing from opposite the blowing house to Hillson's House.

Mk 1A Royston Rain Gauge ..... look down the page for illustrations ......

That is quite a deep collecting cylinder!

How it fits together.

Looking down during a coffee stop .....

Zoomed view.

Enclosure not far from the river, possibly at SX 64408 62625 .....

Zoomed view.

Approaching Hillson's House, named after a foundling found on the hill. His name became Hillson as he was a son of the hill .....

Hillson's House .....

Hillson's House ..... I', sure it was easy to enter many years ago without climbing over the wall of stones .....

The interior.

The end, and biggest, stones at the north end of Stalldown stone row .....

Image © J Butler 1993. Reproduced by kind permission (ref. 29 Sept. 2012).Image © J Butler 1994. Reproduced by kind permission (ref. 29 Sept. 2012).

J. Butler (1993), Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities IV, The South East. 54.18 Stalldown stone row and cairns (figs. 54.20 & 21, pages 60-62). There are 62 stones standing, 17 fallen and 8 buried, making a total of 87 locatable, stretching over 840 metres.

There are six large stones at this north end of the row .....

Stalldown stone row .....

Stalldown stone row ..... Butler's "cairn 1", almost in the row .....

Stalldown stone row .....

Stalldown stone row ..... the last standin stone .....

Stalldown stone row ..... final view.

Walk details

MAP: Red = GPS satellite track of the walk.

Elevation Profile of the walk, reflecting the Kilimanjaro effect of the last hill, up to Hillson'e House and the Stalldown row.
The climb was 109 metres (357 feet)

This walk was reached via Cornwood, heading north-east from the village square, taking the third road on the left, at Torr. Ignore a small green lane shortly following the first road on the left. Then immediately right, finally bearing left to the car park at the yellow cross symbol on the map above. The car park becomes unavailable on 24th June 2014.

Statistics
Distance - 8.37 km / 5.20 miles.