This walk: 2016-2-10. 12 miles stone, Grimstone & Sortridge Leat, Reddicliffe Farm, WB / SB parish boundary stones, waste pipe, beech trees.
Walk details below - Information about the route etc.
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)
try zooming in with the mouse thumbwheel and "dragging" the map to see points of interest
click on the red 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: 8th May 2013 and 9th September 2015.
12 miles stone on the old Plymouth to Tavistock road, at SX 51647 72368: behind this is the Grimstone and Sortridge Leat that still supplies water to local farms. The leat is approximately seven miles long and dates from the 14th Century, when it originally supplied water to Grimstone Manor and later (16th century) to Sortridge manor.
Passing Reddicliffe Farm ......
Another view; the standing water gives an indication of recent weather - it was raining again today!
Leat side-branch to the farm - looking south, away from the farm.
The leat by the road at SX 5328 7289 .....
Group beside the leat .....
Someone taking revenge for a certain photograph from 9th Sept. 2015 - this one, to be precise?
Such innocence!
WB - Whitchurch / SB - Sampford Spiney parish boundary stone at SX 52241 72660 .....
Overview, showing the stone's proximity to the road.
The art of Dartmoor hedge building, with carefully interwoven stones - or the use of eave-filling concrete remains from the old Plaster Down Camp. This was a 1943 British Army hospital that looked after wounded Americans following the D-Day invasion. It was used for Polish refugees after the war and in 1971 it housed ejected Indians from Uganda when Idi Amin threw them out of the country with no possessions.
A disused waste pipe, at this point a certain suggestion was made .....
Going .....
Going .....
Arriving at the other end .....
It is possible!
Building in a field associated with the management of waste from the camp.
Part of a hospital bed, in a hedge.
More hedge-builders' art.
Another SB/WB bound stone .....
"WB".
The road at SX 5175 7184 ..... with a row of old beech trees .....
Beech tree .....
Beech trees.
Boundary stone at SX 51782 71321 .....
SB - Sampford Boundary .....
It was here that someone left their shoe in deep mud, that had had the appearance of solid tarmac!
The leat at SX 51518 71610, there is another boundary stone nearby .....
Looking in the opposite direction, the leat disappears into private land, running into Sortridge.
From this point, the road runs past Fullamoor Farm: it was here that an RAF Liberator bomber crashed on 31st October 1942 while trying to land at RAF Harrowbeer with the loss of six crew with one survivor.
After the walk, I surveyed our estate and found this camellia, perhaps already past it's best condition - a sign of climate change?
MAP: Red = GPS satellite track of the walk.
© Crown copyright and database rights 2015. Ordnance Survey
This walk can be reached from either Horrabridge (up Jordan Lane) or Tavistock (across Whitchurch Down); plenty of parking on firm ground on the east side of the road at the site ,arked by the yellow cross.
Statistics
Distance - 4.63 km / 2.88 miles.
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