Dartmoor CAM

This walk: 2010-7-2. Hound Tor, Jay's Grave, Haytor Rocks, Honeybag Tor, Giant's Chair, PIT stone (DS 1854), Hameldon Hill, gnarled hawthorn tree, RAF Memorial, Hameldown Tor, Grimspound, Hookney Tor, Natsworthy Hill, bracken, soft rush, Heathercombe Woodlands, Mariners Way, cornflowers, red campion, stonecrop, bramble flowers, marsh thistle.

Walk details below - Information about the route etc.

22 July 2010 - Postscript to the Giant's Chair story.

Hound Tor, from the car park.

Jay's Grave at SX 73235 79906: local legend says that there are always fresh flowers on the grave ....... The story of Kitty Jay can be seen here, on a Legendary Dartmoor web page.

Offerings are still left by passers-by.

The path from Jay's Grave towards the Giant's Chair.

A view over the hedge back towards Hound Tor (left) in the distance and Haytor Rocks (right) .....

Hound Tor (left) in the distance and Haytor Rocks (right).

Over the same hedge, looking south, Honeybag Tor.

Honeybag Tor and the valley down to Widecombe in the Moor.

First view of the Giant's Chair, a public work of art, a very large wooden sculpture made from jointed, green oak in 2007 .....

View from the rear of the sculpture, looking down the valley .....

Close-up .....

A look at the engineering in wood .....

A rural setting for a large piece of sculpture .....

The Giant's Chair with a 6' 3" individual for scale!

Further along the path, arriving at the gate near Natsworthy Manor.

A Duke of Somerset (Natsworthy Manor) boundary stone, at SX 7210 8017, engraved DS 1854 on one side .....

..... and PIT on this side. It is known as the "Pit" stone. The stones were erected by the 11th Duke of Somerset, Edward Adolphus Seymour, after he bought the manor. This one is next to Natsworthy Road.

Looking back towards Natsworthy Road after entering the open moor at the eastern base of Hameldown Hill.

A gnarled, wind-shaped hawthorn tree, where we stopped for coffee.

Bracken rhizomes ("roots") exposed alongside the path.

V
R.A.F.
S. 49
R.D.W.
C.J.L.
R.B.
R.L.A.E.
21.3.41

RAF Memorial, SX 71283 80703, to the four-man crew of a Hanley Page Hampden (aka "Tadpole") bomber no. X3054 that belonged to RAF 49 Squadron Scampton. It crashed on returning from a raid by six aircraft that bombed submarine pens and laid mines off Lorient on the Brittany coast on 21st/22nd March 1941. Brief details of this raid, part of the Battle of the Atlantic, can be seen on the 49 Squadron Association Roll of Honour web pages dedicated to the young flyers, linked below:

R.D.W. - Pilot Officer Robert Wilson, Pilot, aged 25, buried Exeter
C.J.L. - Sgt. Charles Lyon, Air Gunner, aged 23, buried Prescot, Lancashire
R.B. - Sgt. Ronald Brames, Wireless Operator/Air Gunner, aged 22, buried Eltham, London
R.L.A.E. - Sgt. Richard Ellis, 2nd Pilot, aged 23, buried Exeter

RAF Scampton during WWII - home of 617 Squadron (Dam Busters)
RAF Scampton today - home of the Red Arrows
Lorient - Keroman submarine base

Other links: Legendary Dartmoor link, Dartmoor Crosses link, YouTube movie of a Hampden .....

This plaque is on the reverse of the granite memorial stone.

Hameldown Tor and trig. point, SX 703 805, elevation 529 metres (1735 feet) .....

A zoomed view to the Warren House Inn.

Zoomed view to Broad Barrow, SX 705 798.

A fine place for lunch .....

..... before descending to Grimspound (with Hookney Tor in the background), click here or on the photo to see a larger version of this view. To return here, hold down "Alt" and press the Left Arrow key.

South entrance to this Bronze Age settlement and pound .....

The incised cross in the entrance on the right-hand side as you enter.

One of the more elaborate of the twenty-four huts (round houses) in the pound ..... this one has an extended, curved porch reminiscent of an Inuit igloo .....

More detail.

Another hut seen in 'silhouette' against the hill (Challacombe Down) behind

Walking back towards the Natsworthy Manor area, with Heathercombe Woodlands on the left (see the two notices below).

Natsworthy Hill, overgrown with a sea of bracken.

Soft rush, Juncus effusus, seen in clumps all over Dartmoor.

Notice just inside the gate into the woods .....

Second notice, with mention of the ancient Dartmouth-Bideford Mariners Way, which deviated through here to avoid the large hump of Hambledon Hill nearby.

Another view of the Giant's Chair.

Another view of Jay's Grave.

English stonecrop, Sedum anglicum.

Cornflowers, Centaurea cyanus .....

Cornflower just opening with unidentified bee/fly where many florets are unopened .....

Cornflower with many florets open.

Red campion, Silene dioica.

Clump of bramble flowers .....

One in close-up.

Cottage at Swallerton Gate.

Believed Marsh Thistle, Cirsium palustre, rather than the single-headed Meadow Thistle, Cirsium dissectum.

Foxgloves, Digitalis purpurea.

Walk details

MAP: Red = GPS satellite track of the walk.

The approach to this walk was by the road from the Newton Abbot turn-off on the A38 just past Ashburton, heading towards Exeter. Continue straight ahead through Halshanger Cross, turn right at Cold East Cross, left at Hemsworthy Gate after passing Rippon Tor on the right. Then, right at Harefoot Cross and on to the car park by Hound Tor, signed by the P symbol and yellow cross on the map.

Statistics
Distance - 10.6 km / 6.6 miles

Postscript to the Giant's Chair story .....

A series of screenshots from BBC Spotlight, the local TV news program, on 22 July 2010, about the dismantling of the chair, chiefly because there was no long-term planning permission. The item included an interview with the sculptor - Henry Bruce.






This is a double exposure, something I thought impossible with a digital camera?