Walking on Dartmoor. Earle John

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      Looking towards Saddle Tor, Low Man and Hay Tor from Rippon Tor, Walk 23

      Take this story as you will but there are parish records of a terrible storm on Sunday, 21 October 1638 in which four people were killed and 62 injured in Widecombe church. This storm has a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the worst tornado ever to have taken place in the United Kingdom.

      I could fill a book with the numerous other legends there are but let me whet your appetite by mentioning a few more in the hope that you will be able to find out the stories yourself. First Jay's Grave on which, it is said, there are always flowers to be found. Then the Hairy Hands, seen and felt, if you were to believe the legend, where the Cherrybrook flows under the road near Powder Mills. Or Childe the Hunter, who in Norman times was caught in a blizzard while out hunting on the moor near Fox Tor Mines. To try to protect himself from the freezing storm Childe killed his horse and crept into the carcase but to no avail; his body was found by the monks of Tavistock Abbey, who because of the conditions of his will written in the horse's blood, were left his lands at Plymstock for giving him a Christian burial. A 19th-century cross over a kistvaen marks the spot where Childe was supposed to have died: Childe's Tomb on the map.

      Then there is the Coffin Stone near Dartmeet. Or the story of Benjie of Cranmere Pool. Or the Dewerstone or Devil's Stone where he is supposed to hunt with his pack of Whist hounds, coal black creatures with eyes of flame. Hound Tor has the same legend. Near Hound Tor is the Bowerman's Nose, another hunter, turned to stone this time. Then there are Branscombe's Loaf and Cheese, Lady Mary Howard, the White Bird of the Oxenhams, the Hound of the Baskervilles. The list is endless.

Dartmoor today

      Dartmoor was one of the first National Parks in the British Isles and dates from 30 October 1951. The headquarters and offices are at Parke, Bovey Tracey, Devon TQ13 9JQ, telephone 01626 832093.

      This guide is no place to enter into the controversies and politics that surround the National Parks in Britain and in particular the Dartmoor National Park. The pressures on such areas of wild beauty, from those of you who, I hope, will want to walk on the moor to the many thousands who just drive up there in their cars and coaches and look for parking space, through to those with commercial interests such as farming, forestry, military training, china clay works and dams for water, not to mention building roads within the boundaries of the National Park are enormous. I read somewhere that more terrible things have happened to Dartmoor since it became a National Park than ever before it was designated!

      Clearly as the pressures of urban life build up, more and more people will want to escape into the quiet and peace of the countryside, but do they really want that? I sometimes doubt it when I see the crowded car parks at Dartmeet, Princetown, Widecombe, Postbridge and New Bridge. So there has to be control, discipline, money and understanding care to make sure that Dartmoor still retains its beauty and wildness without, on the one hand, stifling and thwarting those who have to make a living on the moor, on the other, making the National Park like some awful exhibit never to be changed, with tight controls for entry and concrete paths to walk on as you find in some of the American Parks.

      For people to come to Dartmoor means that in many cases they have to be educated as to how to use the countryside and this includes the open moorland which many regard as land that is not owned by anybody. This is in fact not true. Dartmoor National Park does not belong to the nation as the name implies; it is all owned by the Duchy or by farmers who have common grazing rights (the commoners) or other landowners. There are however small pockets of land owned by Devon County Council, one of which is around Hay Tor.

      To start then you could find no better advice than the Country Code:

      1. Guard against all risk of fire.

      2. Fasten all gates.

      3. Keep dogs under proper control.

      4. Keep to paths across farmland and then only if there is a right of way.

      5. Avoid damaging fences, hedges and walls – particularly climbing over them.

      6. Leave no litter – take it home.

      7. Safeguard water supplies.

      8. Protect wildlife, wild plants and trees.

      9. Drive and walk carefully on narrow country roads. (It is important to know how to reverse your car and be prepared to do so!)

      10. Respect the life of the countryside.

      Coupled to this last one I should like to add one more.

      11. Do not make unnecessary noise.