The Fabulous Four go to Dartmoor

 Just four of us for this walk but very enjoyable nonetheless. The day was dry, clear but very cold, especially when there was a wind. But not too bad as long as we kept moving.

This one came in at 6.88 miles on my GPS so we'll round that up to 7. A good mixture of urban, woodland, riverside and open moorland, with a few steep bits to exercise our lungs as well as our legs. We started and ended at Okehampton Station, which had a cafe at the end! Hooray. We dropped down into Castle Park and walked through the town, passed the College and then up the East Okement River, as it flows through West Cleave. A fair way up, we headed up and around East Hill before dropping back to the station. A good walk and a good day to choose, as it poured with rain the next day.

An interesting twisted oak in Castle Park, opposite the eponymous castle. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble constructing a spiral of stones on the ground underneath. 

A couple of old water pumps on display at the roadside opposite what remains of the Okehampton Workhouse. My sort of street art.

'OBB 1935'. Okehampton Borough Boundary marker, of which there were 11 originally, but not all of them remain.

This Robin was disappointed when there were no crumbs falling from our coffee stop. One of the very few small birds we saw on the walk.

Looking back down the East Okement River, with the take-off point on the right for the Old Town Leat. This runs for the better part of a mile and once fed a couple of water mills. The last of these closed in the 1950s, but had converted to electricity long before then. Although the Victorian mill building is still standing, the site was first mentioned in the Doomsday Book. 

A rather poignant inscription on a wooden bridge over the East Okement at Fatherford.

And here is the story behind the inscription. Before the bridge, crossing the river was by the nearby ford. Charlotte was crossing this on her horse, the horse bucked and Charlotte was thrown off and drowned. The bridge has been constructed so that it is wide enough for both walkers and horse riders. A fitting and very practical tribute to her memory.

A series of views as we progressed up the side of the East Okement. I think we were all expecting the river to be running higher than it actually was. Despite this, it was very impressive and, having walked up a considerable length of it, it loses elevation quite rapidly.

The lane to Lower Halstock farm, with the just about discernible remnants, to the left, of the original ford through the brook. Just a little bit of forgotten history.

An unusual lichen growing on a wall just up from the ford/bridge. Not sure what it was but my naturalist neighbours, Mary and Tony A, were able to shed light on the identity: "The lichen is Peltigera canina, Common Dog Lichen (most likely - the commonest one). Supposedly named after the canine-like tubercles on the underside. Rather variable in cuticle colour depending on what the symbiotic co-species of alga or cyano-bacteria is cohabiting with the fungus". It's always nice to know what you are looking at,

There was actually some snow on the upper reaches of Yes Tor.

Seeing ponies and horses on Dartmoor is a common occurence but this was the first time I've seen so many and so many that were not your usual Dartmoor-type. In fact, these are Shetlands and Miniature Shetlands bred at the Lower Halstock stud farm.

Descending from the higher slopes of East Hill, we came across these earthworks associated with 'settlement' on the OS map. Here's a little more information:
The rampart on East Hill stands 3 metres high in places and has a wide, flat-bottomed, ditch on the outside. East Hill is properly termed a promontory fort, rather than a hill fort, having been built at the end of the East Hill ridge to take advantage of the natural defences provided on two sides by the steep wooded slopes above the East Okement River and the Moor Brook. 
East Hill Iron Age fort lies on moorland south east of Okehampton and can be approached from a number of directions using public rights of way.
Hill forts are characteristic of the middle and later Iron Age (500BC – AD 50) and are seen to be the fortified settlements of the Celtic people. At least 12 hill forts survive on Dartmoor. East Hill fort is at grid reference SX 604 941.
Records show that East Hill fort was examined by the Reverend H G Fothergill in 1840. One hundred years later John Brailsford undertook a very small-scale excavation on the central entrance which divides the rampart in two. He found that the end of the rampart was neatly faced with eleven courses of small slabs and there appeared to be a palisaded trench forming a passage into the entrance. No other finds were recorded. A nearby outcrop of rock is known locally as ‘Roman Chair’. This name possibly arises from the 19th century discovery of a horde of 200 Roman coins in the East Hill Area.

The footpath taking us back to the Fatherford Bridge was, in parts, quite vertiginous. The sides of the West Cleave, through which the East Okement runs, are surprisingly steep.

Another one for Mary and Tony A and the response was: "The plastic "biscuit wrappers" are a proprietary item used for surveying for Hazel Dormice. Ecological surveyors plaster an area with them as a quick and dirty way of finding out if there are any HD in an area/site. The HD frequently build temporary nests in them, so the surveyors visit them for several months at weekly intervals".

A more traditional box used for the same purpose as the plastic version. Once you get your eye in for these, it was surprising how many there were. 

A closer view of the Peltigera canina, showing, if you look closely, the tubercles at the 'leaf' edges that look like dog's teeth.

And for those, like me, who find the sound of running water so calming and evocative.

Liz Truss: another one of Trump’s useful idiots?

You really couldn't make this up as yet another politlcal titan shows how moronic they are. In response to Donald Trump’s social media announcement that he’s bringing back plastic straws in the US, Liz Truss claimed, on X, that lefty policies like banning plastic straws were to blame for the unprecedented Tory election wipe out in 2024. With content like this Truss renders political parody useless. How are we supposed to compete when Britain’s shortest-serving Prime Minister in history keeps doing herself over like this? It’s debatable whether it’s even worth going through all the reasons she’s delusional, but I’m going to do it anyway, because it’s funny, and because I think we still need to reflect on what went so wrong with our political system that such a foolish person ever became our Prime MInister.

Truss takes absolutely no responsibility for the Tories getting trounced in 2024. According to her timeline it went - ban plastic straws in 2018, then nothing, then lose the election in 2024. The rest in between is apparently irrelevant. Small matters like these:

* Boris Johnson’s night of the long knives style purge of most of the brains behind the Tory operation in 2019, leaving the party with no choice beyond fools and fanatics when it came to his successors.
* Johnson lazily plagiarising Theresa May’s shambolic mess of a Brexit deal, despite having voted against it when she was trying to get it through.
* Tories drunkenly partying away in Downing Street and Whitehall while they forced the rest of the country into lockdown.
* Tory politicians using the Covid crisis as an excuse to tear up official procurement rules and siphon literally £billions in public cash to their mates in dodgy PPE contracts.
* An internal Tory civil war to get rid of Johnson, which ended up with a plonker like Liz Truss becoming PM.
* Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng side-lining the financial regulator (OBR) to rush through a disastrous mini-budget that than tanked the economy.
* Truss getting replaced by Rishi Sunak, despite the fact he’d been caught red-handed pretending to be a full-time resident of the US when he was working as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Downing Street, while his wife simultaneously dodged UK taxes by pretending to be resident in India!
* All of this against a background of austerity ruination, incompetence, multiple corruption scandals, and continued economic stagnation.

Apparently none of this played a role in the Tory downfall, and if they’d just listened to Truss’s objections to the plastic straw ban in 2018, they’d still be in power today!

Then there’s the idea that banning plastic straws is a "lefty policy". In reality it’s an environmental policy aimed at preventing a particularly bad type of disposable single-use plastic ending up in our oceans.
 It’s actually got nothing to do with the left-wing politics of securing better conditions for workers, and public ownership of vital national infrastructure and services (energy, water, public transport, health, education, mail, etc.). Believe it or not, it’s possible to have centrist or even fairly right-wing views, and still believe that it’s wrong to dump a load of disposable single-use plastics into our oceans.

You have to be way off on the fringes of the bonkers political right to think that pollution and ecological destruction are a price worth paying for plastic manufacturers to turn a tiny bit more profit, but the fringes of the bonkers political right is exactly where Truss resides.

* It’s the school of thought that considers it good that privatised water companies are pumping raw shit into our rivers and coastal waters to save money on sewage treatment, because that means more cash to pay out to shareholders and executives.
* It’s the school of thought that rejects any and all efforts to protect people and the environment from the excesses of capitalist profiteering.
* It’s the school of thought that holds profit to be king, and anything that gets in the way of capitalist profiteering "ludicrous".

Truss is so divorced from reality that she actually seems to believe that the majority of the country are as much on the looney radical-right fringes as she is, that her spectacularly rapid downfall was down to a conspiracy of the "lefty deep state", and the massive public rejection of the Tory government in 2024 was due to the ban on plastic straws, rather than their trail of chaos, incompetence, and corruption. And in this instance she’s taking the phrase 'clutching at straws' to a whole new level. Or, maybe, this was the final straw for Liz? The straw that broke the camel's back? Let's take a straw poll and see what the consensus is.

Dartmoor Walk: Bellever from Dunnabridge Pound

The day was dry, cold and clear and a great opportunity to tackle a stretch of open moor in an area unlikely to be too waterlogged. A circular from Dunnabridge Pound fitted the bill. A good stretch of the legs, followed by tea and coffee at the Plume of Feathers in Princetown. And it was cold, just above freezing with a very keen wind. Definitely a case of keeping moving to keep warm.

We started at the Dunnabridge Pound car park and headed towards Bellever, skirting Bellever Tor. From Bellever, it was a pretty straightforward route back, via Laughter Hole Farm and Dunnabridge Down. My GPS clocked 6.3 miles, a little longer than planned but we had to make a view adjustments as we went along. And the sky was blue all the way around.

The view from the car park, blue sky and an open vista.

Dunnabridge: postbox № PL20 453. A Victorian postbox set into the wall of a farm building and emptied each morning, except Sunday, at 10:30.  This one, which is listed, dates from around 1880, and has been serving the local community since then. Long may it continue but, given all of the changes going on with Royal Mail, I do wonder how long they will be a feature of the countryside, particularly these more isolated areas. They are worth fighting for so let's keep an eye out for actions that we can take.

Looking across the open moorland towards Bellever Tor which, at this point, I had intended to climb. But it didn't quite work out.

A less than helpful signpost, indicating 'Path' in both directions. I suppose it's useful to know that you are on a path but it would be even more useful to know where you are heading for, or coming from.

Getting closer to Bellever Tor. At this stage, the plan was to skirt the trees to the right and then head up to the tor with those who were feeling energetic.

Bellever Forest - very popular in the warmer months but we, more or less, had it to ourselves today. We only saw two other walkers as we went around. Well, we actually saw them twice, presumably on their out and back routes.

Light brown cones decorating this Sitka spruce.

So near, yet so far. The theory was correct but, in the event, the way up was so rocky and pitted that I decided that it would be better to give it a miss. Is that a sign of advanced year? Showing a little common sense.

The rather clapped-out clapper bridge at Bellever. Not surprising really, as it dates from the mediaeval period. It originally had four spans but only two preserve their lintels today. English Heritage state that this bridge is likely to have been on the medieval track known as the Lich (or Lych) Way which led from the Ancient Tenements on the Forest to Lydford.

I wonder how many of my fellow walkers noticed this at the side of the path as we headed for Laughter Hole Farm? The farm is sadly no longer in use and is now fenced off to prevent trespassing by curious walkers.
The farm has a sad tale attached to it, dating from the Victorian age, concerning a young girl,and her over-protective father, who tragically lost his wife in a horse riding accident and as a result forbade his daughter to ever leave the protection of the farm. Obeying her father, the girl spent her days helping out where she could, the only time she allowed herself any sign of rebellion was when her father went to market to sell their produce. Once a week he set off early, not wanting to leave the girl on her own any longer than necessary, whilst she in turn made the most of his absence by climbing to the top of the highest tree in the forest to sit and daydream about what life must be like in those far off lands beyond the confines of her home. One day her father returned early, eager to show her the new doll he had bought for her. Being roused from her fantasies with a start and not wanting to be caught breaking the rules, she scrambled back down the tree. In her haste, she lost her footing and fell...her fall being broken when the strap of her apron dress snagged on a branch, snapping her neck in the process. Her father arrived back to find her lifeless body hanging from the tree. Distraught, he cut her down and immediately buried her in the grounds of the only home she had ever known. As he placed a handmade wooden cross, to mark her final resting place, a white dove flew up from the trees above and the father took this as a sign that his daughter was finally getting the freedom she craved.

A tree festooned with the epiphytic lichen, Usnea (Epiphyte = lives on but does not damage, unlike a parasite). One measure of air purity is based on the presence/abundance of such lichens, where different lichens can tolerate different levels of pollution. The method uses the Hawksworth & Rose Zone scale for the mean estimation of mean winter sulphur dioxide levels in England & Wales. With a scale of ten levels of pollution/purity, the presence of Usnea species indicates the purest air. Walkers in this part of the world breathe only the best air!

Ah well, better luck next time for Bellever Tor. And there will be another time as I've sorted out the best route to the top.

Dunnabridge Pound is another of the many Bronze age structures on Dartmoor. It has certainly been used in more recent times as a cattle/sheep enclosure. Although back in the Bronze Age up to 17 people lived here in a number of huts, one of which can just be made out in the centre of the walled ring. Just inside the entrance on the left is the Judge's Chair, believed to have been brought here by the local Dunnabridge farmer. He maintained that a bench from Crockern Tor formed the seat and that the Crockern judges table formed the roof of the Judge’s Chair. What is for certain is that it was used as a shelter by those tending their animals within the Pound.

Not a tor? Definitely Notter Tor

 I've always been intrigued by Notter Tor, simply because of where it is and the fact that it seems to be rarely visited, probably because it doesn't look particularly inspiring and does not have any clear access points. Having a spare couple of hours recently, I wandered off for a solo exploration. 

It was a short walk, centred on the hamlet of village of Henwood, on the eastern edge of Bodmin Moor. It was a very pleasant jaunt of just under two miles.

In the distance is the engine house associated with Houseman's Shaft at Minions, a reminder that, at one time, Henwood was at the centre of a network of mines and quarries and was a very busy place. Nowadays, it's tranquility belies its heritage.

Access to Notter Tor is via a stile off the footpath from Henwood to North Darley. And this is part of the footpath! It seems to be permanently flooded but is easy to negotiate by clambering up the bank on the left.

Just over the stile and starting up towards the top of the tor. Stunted trees, mainly oak and lots of bracken and gorse. So much of both in the summer that they make the tor essentially inaccessible. That and the ticks.

One of those little mysteries that you come across every now and again on a walk. A small solar array with no obvious connections in the vicinity. Maybe it was there to power an electric animal fence? A bit nerdy of me, really, to ponder on such matters.

Looking across to Sharpitor. Notter Tor is lower than the immediate mass of Bodmin Moor so there are no extensive views in that direction. Sharpitor, at about 2 miles away, is the limit of the panorama.

A disused and flooded quarry of the Darley granite workings. There is only one quarry working around here now, and that produces high quality stone for monumental and memorial purposes.

On the road back to Henwood, looking up to Notter Tor. It looks like a pretty undistinguished lump and that's probably the best way of describing it. I'm glad I went but it's a case of "I did it, so others didn't have to". I won't rush to do it again.

A stand for milk churns. Gradually disappearing as a feature of the roadside near farms. It won't be long before their purpose will only be remembered by a few. There's quite a knack to swinging a 120lb full churn onto the stand - I think this is one of my skills that I'll never have cause to use again.

Henwood Methodist chapel has been long closed and converted into a dwelling. I guess you could call this a shrine to its memory?

Probably the remnants of one of the old chapel's windows. I wonder how many miners sat in pews beneath it and sang hymns on a Sunday. No longer does Henwood echo to their voices. Perhaps on a still evening, they can still be heard?

A walk around the Tamar Trails

Well, it had to happen some time and it did, it stopped raining and we had a sunny day (the best yet for 2025 according to the output of our solar panels). But, aware that most tracks and footpaths on the moors would probably be waterlogged, we opted for for somewhere that offered more substantial walking underfoot. And we chose right!

We started and ended at the Tamar Trails Centre, just over the border in Devon. A brave move on our part but we were confident that the natives would be friendly. The walk was mainly through coniferous woodland and weaved its way around various industrial artifacts associated with the old Devon Great Consols copper/arsenic mining complex. It came in at just under 6 miles.

A fairly common feature alongside the paths were spoil heaps close to the many shafts that are in this area. Many of them are capped but a few are still accessible to those who have the key. The remaining underground complex of levels is, by all accounts, amazing.

OK, breaking all of the rules of photography but this is the way it was with the sun (yes, the sun) shining through the trees.

Just to prove that it was a blue sky day. This shot is looking west-ish with the Kit Hill stack visible in the distance.

More trees and another spoil heap. It takes more than a little imagination to strip away the trees and envision how barren it must have been when the mines were working at full capacity.

Oooh look, another spoil heap through the trees. This one was associated with Wheal Maria and, given how sparse the vegetation is on it, it contains a fair bit of arsenic.

It wouldn't be one of our walks without the opportunity to paddle in puddles or slosh in mud. But, to be fair, there wasn't much of it to content with. What there was seemed to be full of early frog's spawn. Hopefully, the attrition rate of this lot will not be too high despite being laid rather early in the season.

Nearby, distributed on old tree stumps, were clumps of a mucilaginous substance. I think this is 'star jelly' which is, to be indelicate, 'regurgitated frog spawn'. It could be from birds or, even, mammals. I don't think it's a fungus of some sort as most of it was still nucleated.

This complex dates from the early 20th century and was used for arsenic production from Wheal Anna Maria. It apparently closed in 1925 after a life of around 5 years. The ore was crushed and roasted in two Brunton calciners. The arsenic rich gases were conducted by the hot flue in the foreground to a labyrinth condensing flue where the arsenic was condensed and deposited to be dug out. It then went through a second stage of purification by roasting and condensing before being ground to a fine white powder. The arsenic trioxide that was produced is very toxic and was mainly used as an insecticide.

The circular structure in the foreground is what remains of a Brunton Calciner which was, in very simple terms, a large oven for roasting ore.

Despite this rather ominous sign, you can still get up really closer to the structures in the complex. Probably not the best place to stop for our lunch but we would have if there had been somewhere suitable to sit.