A Dartmoor Walk: Ditsworthy Warren, Eylesbarrow Mine and Upper Plym Valley

Undaunted by a rather unusual weather forecast, we decided to go ahead with our weekly walk. Predicted winds of 11656 mph?  Bring it on. Hurricane, smurricane.

This was, of course, all down to a technical glitch on the BBC Weather site. We were not fooled.

A figure-of-eight walk starting and ending at the 'car park' at Gutter Tor. Off to Ditsworthy Warren House along Edward's Path, then up through Drizzle Combe to Eylesbarrow Tin Mine. From there, we followed the track to Plym Ford and there we started our return roughly following the Plym around the Hartor Tors, to join the main track back to the start. Not a difficult walk but I'll give it a 'low moderate' score. It came out at 6.4 miles and it had enough 'up' to make it a good exercise. And the weather was a lot better than expected. (PS: I have not been able to find out who Edward was).

We come across Dartmoor ponies so often, that I tend to ignore them. But, as these two were doing a good job of ignoring me in return, I thought they deserved recognition. Gutter Tor is in the background.

"How long can a scorpion survive under water?" A fascinating question to find stuck to a post in the middle of Dartmoor. It was probably put there as part of an activity for the nearby Scout Hut? Mr Google tells me that the answer is 48 hours. Do I win a prize?

Ditsworthy Warren House dates from around 1830 and has become a magnet for tourists since it featured in the Spielburg film, War Horse. Ditsworthy was first recorded as a warren in 1676 and rabbit keeping continued up until 1947, when the last warrener left. The house is owned by the Maristow Estate and is used occasionally by the military and for Outward Bound activities. We've been visiting for decades and it still retains its mystery.

And across the Plym, on the slopes of Hen Tor, are two rectangular warrens associated with Ditsworthy. The rabbits keep to the softer soil of the mounds as the rocky nature of the surrounding land is not amenable to burrow-digging.

Just one of the many short leats we came across. They were all part of a patchwork of water-power activities used to drive machinery for the various tin mines in the area.

Looking across to Sharpitor, Leather Tor and Peek Hill, where we were last week. This gives a good feel for the landscape we were walking in. Dog Dora in the foreground.

This row of granite blocks could be mistaken for a stone row of antiquity but they date from the early 1800s. They are guides which held iron flat rods in place as they transferred power from a water wheel/engine house to wherever it was needed. These rods covered a distance of about 200 meters up the side of the hill.

The track of the flat rods ended just before this cluster of buildings of the Eylesbarrow Tin Mine. I could not make out what their function might have been.

Possibly the flat rods were used to service this mine shaft? The tin mine was operational from 1814 to 1852. What a place to work! Just imagine trudging to the mine in typical Dartmoor weather and then having to put in a full shift for a pittance of a wage?

All along our route, we came across artifacts associated with mining activities. There were quite a few old wheel pits of various sizes, sometimes it was easier to guess at what they powered than others. It’s always interesting to try and locate the route of water to these wheels. In this case, the track of the leat can just be made out and, probably, there would have been a few feet of a wooden launder to drop the water directly onto the slats of the wheel.

We parted company with our track at Plym Ford and took a less defined, more cross-country route which roughly followed the line of the River Plym. At this point, the track to the left was part of the Abbots' Way, an old byway used by monks travelling between the abbeys at Tavistock and Buckfastleigh. Dog Dora photobombing again.

Evil Combe is probably not the most inviting place to visit as its name suggests. Its boggy, tussocky and rather dreary to say the least. The upper section of the combe is steep and scarred by the remains of the tin mining industry. The lower section levels off and is covered with mires and quake belly (unstable 'floating' bog) moorland  where the combe meets the River Plym. But the ground in the upper section is not too bad so we stuck to a track that followed the contour of the moor. It cuts across huge gerts and ruined buildings but the walking is straightforward and relatively dry.
Local author, Melanie J. Kirk describes Evil Combe in a much more romantic way: Steep valley edges drop to boggy ground that the sun doesn’t touch, and where nothing but heather dares to grow. The wind, exhausted from its long journey across the moors, howls like the great wild dogs that are rumoured to roam these parts. Some believe the devil himself dwells there. They say he lures unsuspecting hikers from the safe paths above by taking the form of a lame sheep or a lost child. Then he drags them down into the bog below, their calls for help drowned by the wind and the devil’s laughter. They disappear from view, never to be seen again. Sometimes on a rare, calm day, you can still hear the screams. But these are all just rumours. The only ones who know the real reason for the name Evil Combe are the dead.”
It's a good thing I read this description after we'd been there. And the origin of the term? Lost in the mists of antiquity but let's go with Melanie on this one.

Heading across to Lower Hartor Tor, a little bit of Dartmoor tautology. Or, perhaps, the cartographer had a stutter?

Looking back from whence we came. The Plym is not visible but the Langcombe Brook is. This part of the moor is full of points of interest with evocative names. There's Grim's Grave, Deadman's Bottom, Giant's Hill, Great and Little Gnats' Head and, not forgetting, Evil Combe. An etymologist's paradise. And just think what ecstasies a walking etymologist is thrown into.

A rather pregnant mare. Seems to be rather late in the season for this one to be at this stage.

This might look like a fairly nondescript landscape but it's anything but as it encompasses human presence and activity for some 4000 years. Sitting from my vantage point on the edge of an Iron Age hut circle, I can see a Bronze Age barrow (the Giant's Basin) to the left, an Iron Age monolith/ cursis stone at the top of a double stone row in the middle, evidence of medieval tin streaming all along the bottom of the Plym Valley, the rabbit warrens I mentioned earlier, the granite workings around the peaks of the Trowlesworthy Tors on the horizon and, just discernible beyond that, the artificial mounds from the china clay excavations at Lee Moor. Now that's what I call a view.

The last half mile or so dropping back down to the Gutter Tor 'car park'. Another nice panoramic view: Sheepstor to the right, the conifers sheltering the Scout Hut to the left and long views into Cornwall in the distance. This part of the track has been upgraded quite recently to make it more 'wheelchair accessible' but it would still be a very bumpy ride.

A Dartmoor Walk: Wistman's Wood, West Dart River, Beardown Tors and Devonport Leat

A walk we did a few months ago and I've only just realised that I never posted it. It's a good reminder of a very pleasant day.

A dry day in prospect and, after a relatively dry spell (by dry, I mean not that much rain), a walk that could have involved a river crossing was a possibility. Thus, we went off to Dartmoor with a Plan A and a Plan B, which did or did not involve water respectively. In the end, Plan A prevailed and it was a good choice. Haven't walked this way for many years and it hadn't lost its charm.

We started and ended in the car park opposite the Two Bridges Hotel. From there we walked up the track to Wistman's Wood and, just north of that, dropped down to the West Dart River - just where the right hand red line bears left. This was the decision point for where we went next. We could gone up Longaford Tor to the right but, as the river crossing was OK, we headed left up to Beardown Tors and then dropped down to the Devonport Leat and followed this back to the car park. About 5.5 miles and, because of the nature of the terrain, I'd give it a 'moderate' in terms of difficulty.

Looking up the West Dart Valley, pretty much showing the entirety of our route. Higher White Tor is to the right in the distance and the mass of Beardown Hill is to the left. Wistman's Wood can be made out at the top of the valley

Wistman's Wood is a fragile protected area, as all these signs indicate. Despite all these, there are still too many people who insist on going into the woods to get close-up photographs for posting on social media. I know, I know, this is a social media post but I did not go anywhere near entering the 'forbidden zone'. I used a long lens to get close-up shots.

Wistman's Wood is an amazing group of trees growing among granite boulders. It is famous for its twisted and weathered dwarf trees, covered in mosses and lichens. The trees are mainly oak, but you'll also find mountain ash, hollies, and ground plants such as bilberry and woodrush, plus lichens, mosses, ferns and grasses. It is a rare relict of the ancient high-level woodlands of Dartmoor and is classed as a temperate rain-forest ecosystem. 

The downside to it being too popular is that measures have had to be taken to reduce the footfall of this delicate ecosystem. We can blame the Covid lockdown for this!

You can still walk around the top and bottom edges of the woods and there are places to peer in and carefully take photos.  And it is very photogenic because of its mystical looks and the opportunity for uniquely atmospheric images. Add misty mornings, shafts of sunlight and tales of it being haunted and you've got the stuff of mystery - and a magnet for tourists. 

The West Dart River, not that far from where it originates in the peaty marshlands, quite close to Fur Tor

Negotiating the river crossing at the Devonport Leat Weir Head. A modicum of paddling was involved, followed by balancing along a narrow wall. Luckily, the water levels were surprisingly low considering all of the rain we've had

The Devonport Leat was constructed in the 1790s to carry fresh drinking water from the high ground of Dartmoor to the expanding dockyards at Plymouth Dock (which was renamed as Devonport, Devon on 1st January 1824). This is where water is taken from the river into the leat. There are another two such take-offs at other points on the moor.

The leat runs parallel with the river for a while before...........

......contouring around Beardown Tor. And this is what happens when some are braver at leaping across leats than others.

Every now and again we'll come across a ‘sheep leap’ which consists of two projecting slabs of granite, each one set adjacent into the opposing banks and protruding about a foot over the leat. Their purpose is to assist a sheep when it jumps the leat by providing a launch and landing pad thus reducing the risk of it falling into the water and becoming trapped or, worse still, drowning. It might look like a collapsed granite 'clapper' but it's something quite distinct

The leat continues through Beardown Woods, which weren't there when the leat was built.

Green, green.......

..........and even more green. Isn't the eye wonderful that it can distinguish so many different shades, without even batting an eyelid?

Rough waters of the Cowsic River, which runs into the West Dart at Two Bridges. This is a relatively short river, only about four and a half miles in length. It rises near Devil's Tor and flows due south to the west of the Beardown Tors in a steep valley.

Thursday Walk: 3rd October 2024: Lowery Cross, Ingra Tor and Sharpitor Circular

 The sun was shining and it was a perfect day for this walk. The route was a near repeat of one we'd done earlier in the year and it was a case of "back by special request".  Now this is the way to spend a day. It had all that was essential for a good walk, or so an article in the Guardian claimed - something to see, somewhere to pee and somewhere for tea! Simple pleasures.

We started at Lowery Cross, just to the north of Burrator Reservoir, and then followed the old railway track up to Ingra Tor. From there, we headed up to Leeden Tor, skirted a bog to get to Black Tor and dropped down to the Devonport Leat by the Raddick Hill cascade. After about half a mile along the leat, we ascended the ridge between Sharpitor and Leather Tor and walked down through a plantation back to the start. My GPS gave 7.2 miles and I was happy with that. Not a hard walk but it had its moments.

A short distance from our starting point and looking across the Walkham/Tavy/Tamar valleys towards Kit Hill in the distance. Walkhampton church lies to the right in splendid isolation from the eponymous village.

A good example of recycling/upcycling/repurposing. What to do with a piece of old railway line? Make a fence post, that's what.

Originally opened in 1823 as a horse drawn mineral railway, this line ran from Princetown to Yelverton, and onwards to a wharf on the River Plym. It was converted to steam in the 1850s and was closed to traffic about 100 years later. Nowadays it's used as a very popular walking/cycling route and offers a gentle introduction to moorland walking, although, as ever with this part of the world, it's best not to take anything for granted as the conditions can change dramatically very quickly.

There were four intermediate stations (Dousland, Burrator and Sheepstor Halt, Ingra Tor Halt and King Tor Halt) between Princetown and Yelverton - all of which are long gone but all of which have remnants that can be traced if you know where to look. And what made a halt, a halt? The train only stopped if you stuck your hand out or told the guard that you wanted to alight there. We followed the line only as far as Ingra Tor Halt. A tea stop, a quick poke around the old quarry to admire the crane bases and then it was off up the side of the tor.

Ingra Tor, from the southern side, as we started the steady climb up to Leeden Tor. And the black bits on the side of the image is what you get when your lens hood falls apart. But it was a job that was quick to fix with the application of a little Evostick. Until the next time, that is, as it's about the fifth time that I've managed to break the hood. So much for permanent repairs!

Looking roughly westward, with, from left to right, Sharpitor, Leather Tor and Sheeps Tor. We were heading towards the ridge between Sharpitor and Leather Tor.

The Devonport Leat as it cascades down Raddick Hill. It is carried over the River Meavy by a metal aqueduct (replacing the original wooden launder). Quite recently, the powers that be decided that walking across the aqueduct was a dangerous process, so they've installed an ugly safety fence. Quite unnecessary to my mind. A great spot for a sunny lunch.

Looking back over the fading bracken towards Black Tor. A nice formation of clouds to frame the image.

The Devonport Leat curving towards the Stanlake Plantation. The granite sidewalls are obviously impressing Dora the Dog, who is probably thinking "how do I get back to the other side?".

, Leather Tor is a fin of rock rising steeply from the surrounding landscape and is great for a scramble. It's not one of the highest spots on Dartmoor but it has some impressive drops from its granite stacks. A poem from G.M. Potter, written in 1935, describes the tor's majesty well:

"Grim watchman of the Moor, so stark and still,
Like some great warrior, hewn out in stone
By heathen hands, with all the ancient skill
Of an old sun god, seated on his throne!

Thy form the ever changing mists surround
With pale robes swiftly turned to fairy gold
By hidden glories; and the winds around
Thy head wild tales of wonderment unfold.

We live and die; thou standest sentinel
Of life and death, a sphinx-like monument,
Pointing to heaven with a mute farewell
For days that pass, with joy and sorrow blent."

The views from the Leather Tor ridge are as dramatic as they are unexpected. We've not been up here before and it's a unique view of Burrator Reservoir. Look closely and you'll notice the silver sliver of Plymouth Sound in the distance and just a hint of the light reflecting the River Tamar to the right.

Views like this feed the spirits. Mindfulness, anyone?

Not what I expected of Keir..........

 

Keir Starmer stands accused of having off-the-charts hypocrisy. Over 43,000 Palestinians and Lebanese have died, the great majority innocent civilians, in Israeli attacks since October 7th last year, none of which have elicited much in the way of sympathy or concern from him. Yet when Iran launched its missile attack on Israel last week, he took to a televised address to the nation quicker than you could say “here’s some free tickets to the football” in order to condemn Iran’s disregard for civilian life. Israel’s disregard for civilian life doesn’t count apparently. The world is waiting to see what happens when Israel retaliates, as it assuredly will. Iran has promised that if Israel does so, it will respond with a “crushing attack” second wave. And so the dismal spiral of death and destruction continues to ratchet up.

A ceasefire seems further away than ever, not least because Benjamin Netanyahu is widely suspected of having a personal reason for keeping the conflict going. He rejected overtures from his US allies to attempt to reach a ceasefire. That’s because the moment there is a ceasefire, he will be out of office and prosecuted for his rampant corruption. He will not baulk at committing war crimes in order to avoid that fate. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has said Israel’s action in Gaza could amount to genocide.

All attacks on innocent civilians are equally worthy of condemnation, but for all that Israel claims to be the victim, and it cannot be denied that Israeli civilians have suffered from some hideous attacks, this is a heavily asymmetric conflict. Many times more Palestinians die at the hands of the Israelis than the other way around. It is abundantly clear that despite the protestations of the Israeli authorities to the contrary, the Israeli armed forces don’t bother themselves too much with protecting civilians who might be caught in their cross-hairs. The evidence is there in plain sight for those who will see.

If a ceasefire seems impossible, a permanent solution to the world’s most intractable geopolitical problem is now the stuff of fantasy. Everyone says they want peace, but when the powerful men with guns and missiles and drones on both sides say they want peace, what they really mean is that they want victory.

But, for us here in the UK, it’s the hypocrisy of Keir Starmer which sticks most in the craw. He has uttered scarcely a word of criticism against Israel for its genocidal attack on Gaza, an attack whose devastation and death goes far beyond “Israel’s right to self-defence.” He has uttered not a single word about Israel’s apartheid policies against the Palestinians living in territories it controls nor the continuing and accelerating illegal land grabs taking place at the hands of the Israeli settler movement on the West Bank.

We hear a lot from Starmer about Israel’s right to defend itself, the right of the Palestinians to defend themselves, not so much. Even though they are being killed or wounded in far far greater numbers than Israelis and their homes, schools and hospitals destroyed in a way that Israelis don’t experience.

As Richard McNeil-Willson, who lectures in the Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies Department at Edinburgh University noted about Starmer’s recent address when he again stressed Israel’s right to defend itself: “Even as a politics lecturer in a Middle East department, I am lost. Israel has a right to self defence, but Lebanon does not? Israelis have the right to be safe, but Palestinians do not? Iran can’t launch missiles into civilian areas, but Israel can? None of this is coherent. Starmer is incoherent in his total hypocrisy.”

I'll admit that I expected better things of Keir and am extremely disappointed. I am not alone in this.

Honeymoon? What honeymoon?

Back blogging again after a few month's off. And it's straight back to an old familiar theme - Starmer and his chums.

Before Labour’s inevitable victory in July’s Westminster General Election, I, and many others, had the feeling that Starmer’s government would soon become very unpopular as voters realised that the ‘change’ which he had promised was no real change at all. It was 'Tory-light'. It was simply the continuation of the same old damaging Tory neoliberal nostrums, delivered somewhat less chaotically and corruptly. What I didn’t expect was just how unpopular Starmer and co would become and just how quickly it would happen. But then I don’t have the benefit of someone giving me extremely expensive designer glasses. Mind you, Keir Starmer does and he didn’t see the backlash coming either.

Normally when a party wins an election and forms a new government, it enjoys a honeymoon period often lasting several months. This is particularly the case when the new government has just won a landslide and it had taken over from a massively unpopular previous administration. Starmer won his landslide in July and, in the normal course of things, he could have hoped to be basking in his political honeymoon period until Christmas. Yet here we are, it’s only early October and already the sheen has come off his government. A new poll out recently found that 60% of voters believe that Labour will not win the next General Election. The poll also found that a majority do not think that Starmer will still be leading the Labour Party by then, which is not due until 2029.

Of course polls are not predictions, and that goes twice for a poll about an event which is not due to take place for almost five years. Nevertheless, this poll tells us that voters are already getting fed up with Starmer’s Labour party and do not seem inclined to give him the benefit of any doubt that’s going. People are rapidly making up their minds about the new Westminster government and their opinions are not favourable.

Starmer’s crushing Commons majority, impregnable as it appears to be, is built on sand. Starmer only won his 172 seat majority thanks to a quirk of the first-past-the-post system. The last election was the least proportional in British political history. Labour only managed to win 33.7% of votes cast but, despite that, took 411 of the 650 seats in the Commons. Under a proportional system, Labour would have won only 219 seats instead of the 411 they actually won while the Tories would have taken 154, the Lib Dems would have 79 instead of 72, Reform would have 93 instead of 5, and the SNP would have 17 instead of 9.

But that’s not the way Westminster prefers. Both Labour and the Conservatives are wedded to the current system, not despite, but because of its unfairness. The two largest parties are the beneficiaries of that unfairness, they have a vested interest in keeping things just as they are. It is telling that reform of Westminster was not even on the radar when Starmer was intoning his mantra of change, he would not countenance any change that might threaten his chances of absolute control.

With a victory won on just a third of votes cast you might think a prudent politician would ensure that he deepened and widened his support base. But we’re talking about Keir Starmer, so no!

The new regime started badly with the vote to retain the two child cap on benefits and the heavy handed suspension from the Labour party of the seven MPs who dared to rebel even though there was never any threat to Starmer not getting his way. The move smacked of intolerant authoritarianism and bodes ill for the next five years.

This was quickly followed by the decision to axe the universal winter fuel payment for pensioners. The dust had not settled and we were straight into a scandal over Starmer’s addiction to freebies. An investigation carried out by Sky News found out that millionaire Keir Starmer is, by a very large margin, the MP who has accepted the highest value of gifts from political donors and companies since 2019. The value of the largesse enjoyed by Starmer totals over £100,000 in value, more than twice as much as the next gift hungry MP and more than the total accepted by the next five MPs after that.

Starmer has accepted free clothing and the services of a personal shopper for his wife, free suits and designer glasses for himself, and thousands of pounds worth of free football and concert tickets. In any other field these would be called bribes. As Starmer was telling the rest of us that the poor and the elderly have to suffer because his government is wedded to Conservative spending rules. And, despite his large Commons majority, he is too afraid of the right wing media to raise taxes on the rich and introduce any measure that smacks of the redistribution of wealth. At the same time, he was cheerfully accepting thousands of pounds worth of gifts for things he’d have no problem paying for himself. Not a good look and calls his judgement into question.

The backlash led Starmer’s office to announce that he and government ministers will no longer accept gifts of clothing. As though there was a black bin bag for clothing donations on the railings of Downing Street and it’s a huge concession to take it down. Nothing was said about the other gifts, worth many times more than the gifts of clothing. Starmer will continue to help himself to these. Labour was outraged when Boris Johnson did this sort of thing, but when Labour does it we get Wes Streeting – who has accepted over £175,000 in donations from private health companies – saying: “I’m really proud of people who want to contribute…their money to our politics. It is a noble pursuit.” According to Wes Streeting, donors buying designer clothes, Taylor Swift tickets and lending luxury apartments is the same as giving money to charity. You don’t buy political influence when you give £5 to charity.

Streeting also said that he doesn’t think taxpayers should be paying for our politics. So let me get this straight, Wes Streeting thinks that politics should essentially be privatised and those with the most money get to run the show. In fact, that’s exactly how it ought to work, the taxpayers are supposed to be in charge, not large corporations, banks and private funders.

Bribing politicians, noble. How Westminster is that. We know who’s in charge of the Labour party and whose interests it really represents. That’s why Starmer’s tough decisions are never tough on the rich.

Meanwhile at the Labour party conference, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said that the Southport riots must not “silence a serious debate on immigration”. She added the government will bring net migration down, clear the asylum backlog, and end the use of asylum hotels. Only the Labour Party could look at a racist riot and think: “They kinda have a point though.”

I hold my head in my hands in despair. A Labour government caught up in a self-inflicted quagmire. Things can only get better?