This walk: 2016-7-4. Two Bridges underground tor, Crockern Tor, Judge's Chair, magic mushrooms, Littaford Tors, Longaford Tor, Higher White Tor, Devonport Leat, West River Dart, ruins?, site of Wistman's Warren House, Wistman's Wood, Buller stone.
Walk details below - Information about the route etc.
Previous walk/s in this area: 3rd June 2009, 8th October 2009, 4th February 2016 and 3rd February 2016.
Link to Google Satellite view of the area including the GPS track of the walk - compare with the Ordnance Survey map plus track below
"Two Bridges Tor" - this granite formation in the car park opposite the Two Bridges Hotel is said to illustrate how the tors of Dartmoor were formed. The rock is eroded underground. The hypothesis being that the rain-water was acidic, further enhanced by the soils, causing the erosion of weaknesses in the rock to form horizontal and vertical joints, leaving them filled with soft growan. The growan becomes removed in geological time as the nascent tor becomes exposed to the atmosphere by the erosion of the overlying soils. Source: Ken Ringwood, Dartmoor's Tor and Rocks, University of Plymouth Press, 2013, page 9.
Littaford Tors, SX 616 769, elevation 444 metres (1456 feet).
Liberty cap, Magic mushroom, Psilocybe semilanceala, hallucinogenic.
The Judges Chair on Crockern Tor, SX 616 758, elevation 400 m (1312 ft), where the Stannary Parliament met .....
Another view .....
A levelled table?
Littaford Tors, SX 616 769, elevation 444 metres (1456 feet) .....
Zoomed view .....
Further zoomed view.
Longaford Tor, SX 615 779, elevation 507 metres (1663 feet) .....
Longaford Tor .....
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Longaford Tor, displaying marked horizontal bedding joints.
Cow with a striking variegated colour coat ..... it would not look up despite whooping and and cow calling - and I grew up with cows!
Cow resting its head on a granite pillow! True!
On the approach to Higher White Tor, SX 615 785, elevation 527 metres (1728 feet) .....one can search for the more or less hidden stone rows centred at SX 61908 78311 ..... described by Jeremy Butler (1991), Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities, Vol. 2 - The North, 16 Higher White Tor stone rows (fig. 29.10), pages 65-66 ..... Looking at the GPS track on the map below, we appear to have missed half of the length of the rows!
Image � J Butler
1994. Reproduced by kind permission (ref. 29 Sept. 2012).
This is a double stone row of which only twelve stones remain are still visible in place although another twenty-four can be found lying flat. The row extends over about 95.4 metres. The rows are about 1.4 metres apart but it is difficult to be certain as many were probably taken in the building of the newtake wall.
Looking over Higher White Tor, towards Lower White Tor ..... with the trees of Fernworthy Forest on the horizon .....
Zoomed view.
View from the small cairn on higher White Tor looking back towards Longaford Tor .....
Zoomed view.
Approaching Longaford Tor again.
Zoomed view to the head weir of Devonport Leat on the West Dart River. The sluice valve marks the take-off point.
Site of the two rectangular buildings marked on the map at SX 61165 77801, marked as "Ruins?" on the map below. These are shown clearly on old maps: Ordnance Survey, Six-inch to the mile, 1888-1913.
Hut circle beside the track at SX 61238 77598.
Site of Wistman's Warrener's hut (or house?). Kenneth F. Day (1981), in Eden Phillpotts on Dartmoor, Forest Publishing / David & Charles Ltd, page 87, writes: "Just beyond the northernmost group of dwarf oaks may still be found a few piled stones marking a little enclosure, all that now remains of the warrener's lonely home". This was depicted as a wooden dwelling in the frontispiece of the first edition of Phillpotts' book The River, published in 1902. Simon Dell MBE (2011), Dartmoor Wilderness Walks, The Dartmoor Company, Okehampton, page 55, says: "Once you have passed the wood the grassy platform of the warren house can be located to the north of the wood [SX612 775].
The Wentworth Buller stone in Wistman's Wood, a flat triangular slab located just below the track along the uphill edge of the wood. The wood is described on both Wikipedia and Legendary Dartmoor. It is inscribed: "By permission of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, Wentworth Buller on Sept 16th 1866 cut down a tree near this spot. It measured 9in. in diameter and appeared to be 168 years old" - see the photograph below from a previous walk on 3rd June 2009, where the inscription is legible .....
By permission of
h.r.h. prince of wales
wentworth buller
on SePt 16th 1866 cut down a tree near this spot
It measured 9 in in diameter
and appeared to be
about 160 years old
Then, it started to rain on my camera!
MAP: Red = GPS satellite track of the walk.
� Crown copyright and database rights 2016 Ordnance
Survey
Licence number 100047373
Also, Copyright � 2005, Memory-Map Europe, with permission.
This walk was reached by parking at the car park opposite the Two Bridges Hotel, marked by the P symbol and yellow cross on the map.
Statistics
Distance - 9.17 km / 5.7 miles
All photographs on this web site are copyright © 2007-2016 Keith Ryan.
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