Walking on Dartmoor. Earle John

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      You set off along the wall towards Mel Tor leaving Bel Tor on your left on the other side of the enclosure. A left turn between the walls will take you onto the start of Dr Blackhall's Drive, a track that was constructed over a hundred years ago so that this enterprising doctor, who lived at Spitchwick Manor, could drive along it in his carriage and enjoy the view in all weathers.

      As soon as the track emerges onto the open moorland again, it is worth diverting slightly right to climb Mel Tor. The view from here is superb and one of the most impressive on the edge of Dartmoor. Below you is the deep, wooded, winding Double Dart Gorge. Look left and you will see the outskirts of Holne on the other side of the valley. Opposite, about 2km (1.5 miles) away, is the Venford Reservoir and lower down and closer, the low, squat shape of Bench Tor, or Benjy Tor to give it the old, correct name. Off to your right you can just make out the top of the rockface called Luckey Tor, which many people call Eagle Rock, almost down beside the river on its left bank nearly 200m (650ft) below you.

      If you can drag yourself away go back to the Drive and continue along it to Brake Corner below Aish Tor. Here the track swings left and you leave a quarry on your right. After the quarry you can either make towards the River Dart or better still continue along the Drive until you come to the main road and then turn right along it for about 200m. In fact it is quite possible to cut this corner off and walk directly east from the Drive, across the road to Hannaford Manor and the main road, and onto the track that leads down to Leigh Tor. This is an interesting outcrop of rock and it will be obvious that you are off the true granite of Dartmoor. Here, at Leigh Tor, tourmaline has combined with quartz to produce a very hard rock called schorl. There are a few rock climbs here by the way. It is a good viewpoint and there is a fine feeling of height as you look down to the hairpin bends of the road and the great sweep of the river at Deeper Marsh. Search around in the bracken on your right before the start of the lower rocks and you will find a round concrete plinth with a steel rod in the centre. It is said that this was the foundation for a machine gun to be set up during the war by the Home Guard to shoot at the Germans as they came round the hairpin bend on the road below!

      Continue down the ridge via the path until you reach the road. It is worth turning right for 300m or so along the road until you are opposite the car parks before swinging left down to the river. You will arrive at a deep pool below some cliffs which is extremely popular in the summer as a swimming place and is often very crowded. Turn left now and follow the river downstream past several islands. Eventually the river and the road meet you and you should leave the bank and follow the road for some 300m to the fork where you turn up left, signposted Lower Town. Soon there is a steep corner by some cottages and you now leave the road and follow the waymarked track through a conifer wood. Up to now you have been following the Two Moors Way, which you leave here.

      Both the 1:50,000 and particularly the 1:25,000 maps show the quite complicated rights of way where the path goes along three fields and meets the private road of Spitchwick House. By going right, along the road, to a gate into a field you will eventually find your way to Lower Town after going through another gate and following a hedge. At Lower Town turn left up the road past the 19th-century Church of St John the Baptist. This is the only long part of the walk that is on a road but soon you will arrive at Leusdon Common where you will see, away to your left, what looks like a Bronze Age menhir; in fact it was put up in the 1977 Silver Jubilee year. You might like to divert to look at it but otherwise keep going along the road, leaving the old school on your left, towards Ponsworthy with the lovely, deep, wooded valleys of the Western Webbern below you on your right. On the bend turn left through Sweaton Farm and up a lane. Follow the directions on the signposts which will take you through a gate and over a stile to a small road. Turn right along this road until the open moor is reached and where you can walk along the wall. Aim at the corners of the walls that you can see jutting out, cutting off the zigzags, until you reach the main road at Bel Tor Corner where you started the walk.