Dartmoor CAM Walks

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This walk: 2015-7-15. Gutter Tor, Gutter Tor (or Ditsworthy) Gert, Ditsworthy Warren House, the Big Shed, dog kennels, covered leat, cists, menhirs, stone rows, terminal cairns, the Drizzle, Longstone Leat, Scout Hut.

Walk details below - Information about the route etc.

Old map .....
Ordnance Survey, Six-inch to the mile, 1st edition - 1888-1913

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 walks in this area: 3rd February 2010, 9th February 2011, 30th November 2011 and 27th June 2012.

A wander up the track before anyone else arrived .....

Zoomed view to Gutter Tor, SX 578 668, elevation 340 metres (1115 feet).

A multiple lock system where several partners can gain access through a gate across the track near the car park: partners include the commoners, Dartmoor National Park Authority. It works by unlocking a padlock and removing the bar that it secures, then the chain securing the gate can be removed and the gate can be opened.

"This'll fool them!"

Gutter Tor again.

Looking right (south-east) as the track crossed Gutter Tor Mire ..... into Gutter Tor or Ditsworthy Gert .....

And ..... looking left (north-west) at Gutter Tor Mire; this is probably a man-made landscape from tinning activities.

Ditsworthy Warren House where the warrener lived, last lived in in the 1940s by Granny Ware who is buried in Sheepstor churchyard (Source: Mike Brown's CD-ROM Guide to Dartmoor).

A photograph of what?

Ditswworthy Warren House. From Dartmoor & West Devon Accommodation: "Ditsworthy Warren was once the largest commercial rabbit warren on Dartmoor, at one time taking up nearly 1,100 acres. Rabbit farming was banned in the 1950's, but Ditsworthy Warren House, built in the sixteenth century, can still be seen" .....

Another view of the cottage that featured in the film War Horse .....

Ruins in the garden, a former peat store(?) - there are slit windows in an outbuilding, indicating it was once a Medieval longhouse.

The Big Shed, used as a paunching house - for gutting and skinning rabbits .....

This stone was once part of a vermin trap, judging by the slotted groove that could have housed one of the trap's slate shutters .....

A covered length of the leat that supplied the concern .....

Group photograph .......

Behind the Disneyesque tree, a building known as The Trough, water from a branch of the leat ran into it from behind (now blocked). The grooved stones would have held a sluice-type mechanism. A pipe leads from the trough and probably conveyed water into the kitchen where it flowed directly onto a stone slab. The building has unusually slotted entrance posts ......

Zoomed view.

One of three dog kennels in the enclosed Kennel Field behind the house .....

Zoomed view to the River Plym and the head weir of Lee Moor Leat (also know earlier as Bottle Hill Mine Leat, where it once fed workshops); it now feeds Great Pond where water is stored for the clay extraction monitors in the clay pits.

A mighty river crossing at SX 58910 66593.

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

A plan of the Drizzlecombe, Drusselcombe, Thrusselcombe area where there are three stone rows and associated cairns. Features 22, 13 and 21 are kistvaens (cists) - we visited 22 and 13 on this walk.

Cist "22" at SX 59029 66719 .....

Ditto, the capstone has disappeared.

Menhir and stone row no. 1 (of three), restored and the stone is now oriented in line with the row whereas it was probably originally across the row.

The walls of Hentor Warren.

Stone row no. 1 .....

Giant's Basin Palaeolithic burial cairn, unusual in not being somewhere high and prominent .....

The menhir of Stone row no. 2 .....

Terminal cairn of stone row no. 2 .....

Standing on the terminal cairn at the end of stone row no. 3 .....

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

Cist no. 2 today ("13" on the overview sketch map above) .....

An impressive structure, complete with its capstone .....

Closer examination reveals that it is quite deep .....

Side view .....

Hardly a Jack-in-the-box!

See!

The mighty Drizzle, at SX 5902 6723 .....

Longstone Leat, SX 5874 6721.

Long longhouse at SX 58641 67013 .....

Another view .....

Dartmoor CAM movie. TIP .....

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

A movie of the Whittenknowles longhouse.

Click the photo to download

File size: 3.4 MB.
Length 20 secs

Nearby ruins of another building .....

The Scout Hut .....

There is a metal cage for depositing any military debris found in the area.

THAT photograph again.

Walk details

MAP: Red = GPS satellite track of the walk.

The walk is most easily approached by driving over Burrator Dam, through Sheepstor, until reaching a left turn to Nattor. Parking is at the P symbol on the map, marked more precisely by the yellow cross..

Statistics
Distance - 5.14 km / 3.19 miles.