Hamel Down, Hookney and Birch Tor – Dartmoor Walks
December 11, 2021
Hamel Down on Dartmoor sees our return to walking in Devon. It’s good to be back on the blustery moor, getting totally windswept and losing a couple of layers of skin as it rips across our faces. It’s also great to enjoy the unique landscape where we’re always amazed at how different each walk is.
Widecombe-in-the-Moor to Hamel Down
We started in the small village of Widecombe-in-the-moor (pronunciation Wid-e-kum, the “e” like the one in ‘bed’). At the start we spotted a stall selling hot drinks and snacks and…hot pasties. Er, no brainer. “I’d like a hot Cornish Pasty please”….”no” was the response. Confused face from me. “We only sell Devonshire pasties here”. Eye roll from me. Whoops, forgot where I was and my instinct was to say Cornish pasty. There has been a bit of a war over where the pasty originated, but in 2011 the “Cornish” pasty gained PGI status in Europe (Protected Geographical Indication)….honestly, Devonshire or Cornish, who cares, they make amazing pasties.
What is a pasty? Traditionally meat, potatoes and swede placed raw in a semi-circle of folded pastry which is then crimped at the side and cooked. What’s not to like. Anyway, fully fuelled, on with the walk…
What we discovered...
Although the moors are not mountains per se, they are elevated and very open to the elements…..layers are definitely needed. When it blows on the moors, there are few places to hide and it can get quite brutal (our walk was on a particularly windy day).
- Grab a pasty (Devonshire, obviously) in Widecombe-in-the-Moor. A must.
- There are fun things to find on this walk, including 5 bronze age burial grounds now marked by bound stones (see below).
- This walk took us through ‘Grimspound’; a bronze-age settlement. The settlement boundary is so clear and inside the “wall” we could see where the old round houses would have been. I had to check this because my memory from school history classes is non-existent. Bronze-age is 2500 – 700BC (I read that in the museum in Princetown, very educational thank you.)
- Three delightful tor tops; Hameldown tor (with a trig point), Hookney Tor and Birch Tor. As ever each one unique and always fun to find those “old man faces”. One of the rocks on Birch Tor made us think of an Oreo cookie…can anyone else see that or is it just us?
- Dry stone walls to rival the ones we see all over The Lake District.
Bound stones on Hamel Down
Bound stones or Boundary Stones are literally what they say. They mark the boundary between different parishes or the boundary of a particular piece of land. On Hamel Down there are 7 marked on the OS map, 3 of which are named (two barrows, single barrow and broad barrow). I know, what’s a “barrow”? A barrow is a raised area of stone and earth over a burial ground. These ones are apparently dated from the bronze age and are now topped with bound stones.
The bound stones in this area are dated 1854 and are marked with the initials DS, for the Duke of Somerset. They mark the boundary of his land from his home in Natsworthy Manor nearby.
As ever, I never fail to get excited when I see Dartmoor ponies wandering the moors…How nice to be totally unaware of social distancing, mask wearing and the need to sanitise….next year?
