This walk: 2015-9-30. Ringaston ring cairn, Sitka spruce, common heather, deer slots, thistles, Golden Dagger Tin Mine "dry", yarrow, teasel, common mullein, Redwater Brook, wheel pit, Dinah's House, concrete plinths, buddle, bees, Konrad Lorenz, lynchets, fly agaric.
Walk details below - Information about the route etc.
Old maps .....
Ordnance Survey, Six-inch to the mile, 1st edition - 1888-1913 - Orientation: Dinah's House is below "Aqueduct" which is below "Golden Dagger Tin Mine"
Where we walked: Google Satellite view of the area - including the GPS track of the walk (compare with the Ordnance Survey map plus track below)
Previous walk in this area: 4th January 2012, 29th August 2012, 9th July 2014 and 17th September 2014.
The "Ringastan" ring cairn, frequently used for gatherings of various sorts including the use of symbols and blackening of stones. Activities stopped by DNPA action in 1996. Soussons Plantation south cairn and cist, described by Jeremy Butler, 1991, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities II - The North, pages 18-20 (fig. 24.3). The name "Soussons" comes from "South Sands", an old name for the nearby farm and former rabbit warren; it was pronounced as "Sowsons" .....
The central cist is now filled-in (at lower left of photograph) .....
Image © J Butler
1991. Reproduced by kind permission (ref. 29 Sept. 2012).
Nearby DNPA notice.
Forest road, verge, young crop of Sitka spruce trees with older Sitka spruce behind.
A peek into the dark plantation .....
A zoomed look.
Deer "slot" i.e. track - a single footprint .....
A double slot, out of "register" i.e. the rear foot has not registered in-line with the front foot: this is left by a female deer which has a wider pelvis and thereby leaves wider footprints with its rear legs. Reference:Tracks, Trails and Signs, by Fred J. Speakman, 1958, Bell's Young Naturalists' Library, Robert Cunningham & Sons Ltd, Alva (from my youth!). The commonest deer around Dartmoor is probably the roe deer, although fallow deer are also seen and even red deer on occasion.
Hi ho ....... I have to sometimes!
A veritable sea of tall thistles along the track side.
This time, in the shade .....
Cobwebs.
The happy wanderer .....
At the Golden Dagger tin miners' "dry" where clothes were dried after working underground .....
Part of the miners' "dry" with a gert (Chaw Gully, namedafter the jackdaws that were found there in the past), part of Birch Tor & Vitifer mine visible on the skyline at top right .....
Zoomed view of the gert.
General view of the building ..... the guide had met the last person to be born here .....
A memorial cross.
Yarrow, Achillea millefolium (native to Eurasia) ..... growing in the miners' "dry" .....
Close-up .....
The leaf - I remembered this time!
Teasel, Dipsacus fullonum .....
Teasel.
Great or Common Mullein, Verbascum thapsus flower .....
The plant is growing on the wall of the building.
The Redwater stream - so-called because of its colour that derives from dissolved minerals, iron, tin - the Red River, at Gwithian, Hayle, flows through old tin workings.
Part of an wheel pit, at SX 68459 80064.
Dinah's House, at SX 68465 80048 .....
View of a clear-felled area across the valley .....
Another view .....
Dinah's House .....
Below here were the dressing floors of the mine where the crushed ore went through various sorting procedures to "fine" out the tine ore from the dross.
Today's group .....
Concrete bases of long-removed machinery, at SX 68548 79915 .....
"What happened was ....."
The central boss of a buddle, at approx. SX 68545 79883 .....
Overview - where a water separation process occurred to further concentrate the tin.
The story of the farm's livestock.
An apiary .....
One hive ......
The bees were still very active on this last day of September .....
An aside - Bees - is there a "waggle" dance in progress? Konrad Lorenz was joint Nobel Prize winner for Physiology & Medicine in 1973 with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Fritsch after deciphering the meaning of the bees "waggle" dance. He and I spoke about Amphioxus. These photos were taken by Karin Bernatzky, our good friend and Photographer, Zoology Institute, Uni. Salzburg, while we spoke. This was during a family holiday to Austria, in 1988 (by our next holiday there, in 1990, he had died, aged 85). We were visiting the Konrad Lorenz Research Station at Grunau (part of the Konrad Lorenz Research Institute). The visit arranged by Prof. Hans Adam (Uni. Salzburg) and the Station Director, Kurt Kotrschal, both friends and visitors to the Marine Biological Association, Plymouth. Konrad was in failing health and using a wheelchair. During this visit we were told of studies on grey lag goose behaviour and our daughter remembered the "goose girl" for a long time after!
 Konrad Lorenz, Nobel Prize winner (1973). |
 Konrad Lorenz, Prof. Hans Adam &
Keith Ryan |
Valley bottom, a clear-felled area, young and older Forestry Commission Sitka spruce trees.
Medieval lynchets, an ancient field system, on Challacombe Down .....
Zoomed view.
Fields to the west of the Redwater valley.
Zoomed view of a hawthorn tree.
Concrete "clapper" bridge, at SX 68768 79246.
Birch Tor, SX 687 814, elevation 487 metres (1574 feet).
Swinging!
A footpath through part of the plantation - it wasn't all wide forest roads today.
Fly agaric, Amanita muscaria .....
Another view .....
Showing the gills.
MAP: Red = GPS satellite track of the walk.
© Crown copyright and database rights 2015. Ordnance Survey
This walk was reached by taking the right turn east of Postbridge and driving to park on the verge near the stone circlr beside the plantation, at the yellow cross on the map
Statistics
Distance - 6.09 km / 3.78 miles.