Haytor and its tramway

Haytor isn't the most impressive tor on Dartmoor, nor is it the highest, but it is one of the most accessible, is hugely popular and great fun to climb.

We arrived late in the morning on the last full day of our Dartmoor holiday and found the main carparks already full.  It didn't take long, though, to find a space in one on a minor road, from where we set out for Haytor. Notice, by the way, the remains of a quarry on the right.  The land around Haytor was once extensively quarried... but more of that later.

Here's a close-up of the tor. The summit is on the right, and to the left of it there's a deep cleft that one has to jump across before making the final ascent. I was contemplating it and trying to pluck up courage when a young girl scrambled across, and up the other side. "Oh, that looked simple enough," I told myself, before propelling my aged frame over the gap, landing on the other side and not quite slithering back down the rock face.  Easy! 

That's supposed to be a victory wave, not a wartime German salute.  Whoops!

The view from the top.

Haytor really wasn't far enough from the carpark for anything like a 'decent' walk, so we decided to go on to Saddle Tor.  Yes, I can definitely see a saddle shape. I reckon the horse's head is on the right and her tail's on the left.  Agreed?

Here's the view back from the horse's head, in the direction of Haytor.  Saddle Tor was one summit that I had no difficulty in conquering.

Our route back to the carpark mostly followed the course of the Haytor Granite Tramway, which dates back to 1820. According to Wikipedia, the design is "exceedingly unusual" and should correctly be called a flangeway. Personally, I cannot but admire the workmen who formed the 'rails' out of solid granite – the very material that the tramway was built to carry. In this wild and remote place it would presumably have been much more costly to bring in flanged metal rails from elsewhere.

The quarries and tramway closed in about 1859, unable to compete with cheaper supplies of granite from Cornwall. 

 

Incidentally, lest you should be wondering, the difference between a flangeway and a conventional railway is that the flanges were on the track, rather than the wheels.  At one time there were several flangeways (sometimes called 'plateways', I think) near where I live in the Forest of Dean... like this one, the Bixlade Tramway.

Fingle Bridge

The first time I saw Fingle Bridge must have been in about 1979. We had bought the AA book No Through Road – a compendium of hundreds of walks throughout the length and breadth of Great Britain; our introduction to moderately long walks which fired an enthusiasm that lasts to this day.  At 4 miles, the Fingle Bridge walk was well within the capabilities of our children, then aged 5 and 7.

Fingle Bridge is on the River Teign – yes, the same River Teign that I crossed on my Watern Tor walk, a few days before.  Here it's grown a lot from its Dartmoor origins as it flows through the steep-sided and thickly wooded Teign Gorge.

As in 1979, we started the walk on Hunter's Path, high above the gorge.

That's Castle Drogo, peeping between the trees above the path. Last time we came this way we visited, but I wasn't overly impressed. It's not a real castle and a bit too modern for me, so on we walked to Sharp Tor and Hunter's Tor.

 Yes, it was rather windy on Hunter's Tor. I apologise for not smiling.

Descending to the river, we saw this sign, pointing to the hydro turbine that generates electricity for Castle Drogo.

It was locked closed, but I was able to take this photo through the window – a couple of small generators, coupled (I presume) to turbines on the other side of the wall.

A couple of views or the River Teign, taken as we returned along the valley to Fingle Bridge.

And here is Fingle Bridge, viewed this time from upstream.  At this point most people end the walk with a visit to the Fingle Bridge Inn.  That's what we did back in 1979.  This time, though, we decided to extend the walk a further 1½ miles (and 1½ miles back again) to look at the Iron Age hill fort of Wooston Castle.

To my inexpert eye Wooston Castle looks like many other Iron Age forts – a large expanse of flattish ground surrounded by a defensive ditch. It was a nice walk up through the woods, though, and an even nicer walk down to the Teign and back to Fingle Bridge.

8 miles

Watern Tor

 

How might one celebrate 50 years of marriage? A week in the Bahamas, perhaps? Relaxing on some Spanish beach? Not us. 

We had planned a couple of weeks in Southern Ireland but COVID restrictions put pay to that so, undeterred, we booked ourselves a couple of holiday cottages in North Devon – one on the edge of Dartmoor and the other near Lynton.

This impressive rock formation is called Thurlstone. Whilst preparing for this holiday I spotted a photo of it on a website about Dartmoor walks and determined that we would go there.

The weather forecast for Sunday August 23rd was quite good – strong winds but plenty of sunshine. Unfortunately, as we were to discover, the wilds of Dartmoor can generate their own micro-climate, and this they did – drizzle, which, aided by those strong winds, could soak us to the skin.  Fortunately, as you'll see, we had the right clothing.

Angie, is this really the way to celebrate 50 happy years of marriage? Yes! And we could always stop for a Devon Cream Tea on the way back to our cottage.

Our walk began in Fernworthy Forest, at the end of a road that skirts Fernworthy Reservoir. This bit of the forest rejoices in the name 'Froggymead'. 

Emerging from the forest we passed through the restored Grey Wethers stone circles – a reminder that Dartmoor was once more populous than it is now. Indeed, it's sometimes called Britain's first ecological disaster, as the fragile land never recovered after our ancestors felled the trees to make way for farming. They have, however, left us a wet wilderness of rare beauty.

This crossing point on the infant North Teign River, together with and a nearby one on Whitehorse Leat are known to local ramblers as "The Rails".  One crosses by holding on to the wooden rail, standing on the partially submerged stepping stones and hoping for the best.  Great fun.

Large tracts of Dartmoor are set aside as a place where the army may train. The pedant in me wants to re-punctuate that final sentence. 

Thankfully, the army's red flag wasn't flying, so we safely strayed about 2 yards into the restricted space for lunch within the shelter of Quintin's Man cairn. After feasting on Ryvita, cheese and crisps, we then set out along the line of the army's red and white poles for Watern Tor. 

I deliberately have not attempted to brighten these photos of Watern Tor, as they illustrate well the gloom and remote beauty of the place in driving drizzle. 

From Watern Tor there are no clear footpaths over Magna Hill and back to Fernworthy Forest. This was the most challenging part of the walk; the only thing to do was to keep an eye on our bearing, avoid as much boggy ground as possible and hope that the long-abandoned Teignhead Farm really did lie on the other side of the hill.

It did!  What a thankless place this must have been to eke out a living. Next stop Chagford for Cream Tea.