On Monday 12th May, thirteen History Group members came together for a day’s journey of memories over Dartmoor.
Meeting at Buckfast Abbey we took the illusive lanes up over Henbury’s tree-covered flanks towards New Bridge, on the Dart, and thence up to timeless, granite, lichen covered St. Peter’s Church of Buckland-in-the-Moor, overlooking the Webburn Valley. This ancient church is renowned for its unique clock face where in 1930 the Lord of the Manor, William Whitley, replaced digits with the letters ‘MY DEAR MOTHER’ in her memory.
Onwards then, Northwards, to view the Challacombe lynchets, (mediaeval terracing), before stopping in a wind-swept vantage point to view one of Dartmoor’s longest worked tin mining areas. Central was the Birch Tor Vitifers Mine with at its head, close by the road, the beautifully weathered, Saxon aged, granite Bennetts Cross.
From here we followed the 18th century turnpike route through Postbridge, with its Mediaeval clapper bridge over the East Dart, and on to Princetown for our lunch break at The Foxtor Café.
Out then along the Whiteworks road to view the panoramic unspoiled view over Foxtor mire, said to have assisted Arthur Conan Doyle in his creation of The Hound of The Baskervilles.
Our final stop was to be Dunnabridge Pound just off the Two Bridges, Dartmeet road. Here the original Bronze Age structure complete with its later ‘Judge’s Seat’ was an apt finale’ for a day well spent in good company.