Dartmoor CAM Walks

Previous walks Weather Links

This walk: 2015-4-15. Four Winds, King's Tor, Great Mis Tor, Little Mis Tor, Cave, Sugar Lump Pile.

Walk details below - Information about the route etc.

Old maps .....

Overview of maps
Ordnance Survey, Six-inch to the mile, 1884 - no sign of any school. Ordnance Survey, Six-inch to the mile, 1st edition - 1888-1913 - Great Mis is centred at the top of the page and the road is at the bottom. There is no Four Winds on this map, the School is seen at the right, west of Rendlestone.
Ordnance Survey, Six-inch, 1947

Google Satellite view of the area - including the GPS track of the walk (compare with the Ordnance Survey map plus track below)

try zooming in with the mouse thumbwheel and "dragging" the map to see points of interest
click on the place-markers to read their label - they are most accurate at the highest zoom level
try "mousing" over the list of placemarks on the left of the screen, highlights their place on the map
use browser back arrow or Alt key and left-arrow cursor key together to return to normal web page.

Previous walk in this area: 15th April 2009.

Most of the photographs below were taken on a "recce" on Easter Monday, 6th April, early in the morning when there no-one else seen except two runners and later a family of four people making their way up the track at 10.50 am as I reached the car park coming back - I was alone for the glorious, cloudless, blue sky morning! It was much the same on our walk, except that we all had good company.

Four Winds car park, SX 560 748, approaching from the Princetown direction .....

Inside the Four Winds car park area - this was the site of Foggintor School, built in 1914, having about 55 children from the local quarries. It was closed in 1936, becoming a private house thereafter aptly called Four Winds. It was finally demolished in 1965. Before the school was built, Foggintor Mission Hall was used. While it was a school, with just the one headmaster, Fred Stoyle, who was the youngest headmaster in the country, it had a garden with bees, poultry, goats and rabbits. His wife, Mrs. Stoyle, taught the younger children. The children played football on a moorland pitch and warmed their pasties on central heating pipes! The Stoyles' son, Ivan, took the school Christmas tree into the garden in 1924 and planted it, this is the tree you see today - in this photograph!

A "pinch stile" to keep sheep out of the school .....

A second device to keep sheep out .....

The school garden, with a view of King's Tor, SX 556 738, elevation 400 metres (1312 feet) .....

Zoomed view to King's Tor .....

Longash Leat, at the rear of Four Winds, with a small clapper bridge.

On the military track to Great Mis Tor, looking back at Four Winds and King's Tor: Peek Hill is seen above the trees and Leeden Tor at the extreme left.

The Strollers on the track with Four Winds and King's Tor behind .....

There's obviously something interesting over there!

Looking up thr military track to Great Mis Tor, with Little Mis Tor over to the right.

Zoomed view to Great Mis Tor.

Great Staple Tor, SX 542 760, elevation 455 metres (1492 feet), with Shillapark (Medieval in origin) down to the right .....

Zoomed view.

Great Mis Tor with Little Mis Tor (at right).

Little Mis Tor (centre) with Great Mis Tor behind (left and right) .....

Little Mis Tor, SX 564 763, elevation 480 metres (1574 feet)..... seen from the south .....

Great Mis Tor in the distance, from Little Mis Tor .....

Little Mis Tor, seen from the east .....

Showing the location of the Little Mis Tor Cross .....

Little Mis Tor Cross ...... a memorial to Chris Swanson, a Dartmoor guide, Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme assessor, keen hill walker and a shipwright in Devonport Dockyard. He died following a fall from a ship's mast while at work. His ashes were to be scattered at his favourite tor, Great Mis, but on the day, the weather was so bad that the party, which included a vicar, had to stop and shelter in the lee of Little Mis Tor. It was here that the ashes were scattered and a granite plaque was fixed later to the tor by four deep-set bolts. The plaque disappeared after a few weeks, discovered by friends who came to lay flowers in the crevice above the plaque. The four bolt holes are still visible and sometime later, the rock face was inscribed. Source: Dartmoor News, Issue 124 Jan/Feb 2012, page 6.

TO
CHRIS SWANSON
1980
ALWAYS HERE

Recounting the story of the memorial.

Great Mis Tor, with an ancient Dartmoor Forest boundary stone .....

As previous photograph ..... this is not a simple tor, see the number of rock piles here (the range huts should appear at the top edge, centre screen) .....

The Forest of Dartmoor boundary stone, at SX 56339 76778.

View from the boundary stone, with Little Mis Tor towards the left, Four Winds car park (with trees, just right of centre) and King's Tor .....

As previous photograph.

King's Tor, with some trees at Four Winds at extreme left.

Part of Great Mis Tor, SX 563 769, elevation 538 metres (1765 feet), with it's military flagstaff for Merrivale Firing Range, with a cave approximately in the centre of the photograph .....

The famous Great Mis Tor Pixie's Cave .....

A useful shelter in bad weather.

Having taken the photo, I'm not wasting it!

I always seem to photograph this feature when I am here, the famous Precarious Pile .....

The flagstaff, I missed the top of it .....

Looking north from the flagstaff at the topmost rock that contains the rock pan .....

Just to prove we were really here on Great Mis Tor .....

Zoomed view .....

Great Mistor pan, at SX 56267 76932, a worn depression in the rock: the lip on the right was vandalised many years ago. This photograph is from a previous walk (2nd November 2011) because the wind was too strong today to risk climbing to the top on the "recce".

Good to see our guide atop a Dartmoor Tor again .....

As previous photograph .....

Strollers relaxing around the top of Great Mis Tor, it was hot and sunny with a welcome cool breeze .....

Just another group photograph on a beautiful day.

Another photographic favourite - seen below in silhouette (3rd photograph below, taken into the sun).

Just as there is a link at the bottom of this page to photos taken on the "recce" in this area but the sites not included in the route for today, the photos below are of sites that were included but then omitted when the walk was cut short for reasons of time - we enjoyed the sun too much today! Can't say that every time we are out .....

The west-most rock pile ..... note the vertical plus horizontal bedding planes ..... with the famous Sugar Lump Stack just short of the left end .....

The famous Great Mis Tor Sugar Lump Stack, SX 56150 76972.

Silhouette of the central rock pile of Great Mis Tor, the rock pan is on the top-most "flat" rock just left of centre.

Looking west from Great Mis Tor, with Great Staple Tor (left, SX 542 760, elevation 455 metres / 1492 feet), Roos Tor (right, SX 543 766, elevation 454 metres / 1489 feet) and Cox Tor (right of centre, behind, SX 530 761, elevation 442 metres / 1450 feet).

Looking north, at the north end of Great Mis Tor - the Range Clearance Officer's hut ..... their main duties are to clear livestock from the ranges before live firing commences and also to warn walkers and riders from entering a "live" rang, when red flags are flying by day or red lights are showing at night .....

The hut, at SX 56299 77110 .....

The Range Clearing Officer's stable for their pony, with the observation hut behind.

A firing range marker post ..... there are possible peat beds in the middle-far distance at the left, where peat was once cut for fuel ..... these are 2 km north-east of the north-west corner of the prison land marked on the OS map .....

The notice .....

A third marker post "may" be seen on the horizon, just right of the second marker.

Zoomed view to Merrivale Quarry, showing the Dartmoor Inn toward the bottom left with parked cars and the aborted railway embankment that was to link with the GWR to Princetown near King's Tor ..... ....

As previous photograph .....

Ditto, showing the corrugated Wesleyan chapel, now a listed building.

Final view of the Mis Tors.

Walk details

MAP: Red = GPS satellite track of the walk.

Elevation Profile ....... for those who were asking .....

There is an apparent double peak because I went twice to the flagpole area. The twin peaks are at 537 metres (1761 feet). The map shows 538 metres at the highest point (1765 feet) as the height of the tor. The altitude of the car park is 369 metres (1210 feet), therefore we ascended 168 metres (551 feet).

This walk was accessed by parking at Four Winds (SX 560 748) on the B3357, south of Great Mis Tor, on the Tavistock - Two Bridges road, marked by the P symbol and the centre yellow cross on the map.

Statistics
Distance - 5.19 km / 3.23 miles.