Dartmoor CAM Walks

This walk: 2011-9-8. Cist, step stile, Stenlake Road, Devonport Leat, lichens, Stenlake Farm, clapper bridges, River Meavy (Mewy), aqueduct, pipe, Hart Tor Brook, Black Tor waterfall, blowing houses, double mortar stones, lintel, Black Tor Ford, Black Tor, logan stone, rock pan. iron bridge, stone rows, terminal cairns.

Walk details below - Information about the route etc.

Cist or kistvaen complete with most of its covering cairn and retaining circle of stones, at SX 56436 70853. Described by J. Butler (1994), Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities III, The South West. 45.13 Sharpitor North-east double stone row and nearby cairns, pages 46-47.

Nearby three-step stile built into the forest wall .....

View from atop the wall, there are steps on each side of the wall.

Entrance to part of Stenlake Road (see below) .....

View from Stenlake Road into the misty forest .....

A sunken lane that led down to Stenlake Farm (see more below). Stenlake Road - in 1823 William Bickle was paid 1d per yard for repairing ditches along the �road� which would have linked the Meavy Valley farms with the Walkham Valley farms. It must have been built long before wheeled conveyances were ever seen on the moor, being wide enough for packhorses.

The road gets wider at the bottom of the slope, near the farm.

Looking over a wall, Devonport Leat wends its way towards Burrator and Dousland.

Unidentified crustose lichen, on top of a wooden fence post .....

Fruiting bodies, zoomed view .....

Unidentified thallose lichen.

Part of the ruins of Stenlake Farm .....

As previous photograph.

Looking east, back along Devonport Leat

Clapper bridge over Devonport Leat ......

As previous photograph, showing shallow "steps" in the leat.

The leat at the bottom of Raddick Hill, where it is passing over the aqueduct over the River Meavy (or Mewy) - the handrail of which is just visible in the mist in the background. The water from the pipe comes from the river a little further up the Meavt valley (see following photographs) .....

Structure over the pipe from the river. There are two inspection covers in the top and three steps inset into the side of the structure to enable access .....

The pipeline .....

The pipeline crosses the river .....

The River Meavy, up the valley from the leat aqueduct .....

The grilled structure is the take-off point for the pipeline to the Devonport Leat .....

Slightly upstream ..... this is the River Meavy. Hart Tor Brook comes in from the left at this point .....

Looking at the take-off point.

Approaching the waterfall below Black Tor. There is a blowing house on each side of the water at this point, both are just out of view ..... described by Hemery (1983) High Dartmoor, Hale, pages 130-131 ,

The blowing house just to the left when looking at the falls .....

The waterfall, at SX 57479 71654 � 5 metres.

Double mortar stone .....

Showing the proximity of the waterfall and the mortar stone .....

Looking across the river at the second blowing house (visted later, see below).

Looking into the first blowing house, where the mortar stone is seen near the centre-bottom of the photograph.

Black Tor Ford, just above the waterfall.

Black Tor, main rock pile .....

End view, showing the chimney climb on just right of centre .....

The logan stone, a little north of the main rock pile .....

Side view ..... showing the rock pan .....

A groove worn in the moss, showing the stone has moved recently?

A view of the rock pan on the top of the logan stone.

Iron bridge above the waterfall, before getting to the ford.

Back to the second blowing house .....

The lintel to the entrance is still in place .....

It bears an insription .....

"XIII"

This house also has a double mortar stone.

Showing the mortar stone (at bottom right) in relation to the lintel and presumes (sooty) fireplace (right of the lintel) .....

Closer view of the presumed fireplace.

Double stone row at SX 5756 7167 ..... Described by J. Butler (1994), Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities III, 46.5 Hart Tor stone rows and cairns, pages 58-60.

Looking further along the row .....

The terminal cairn, complete with retaining circle of stones .....

Showing the somewhat separate retaining stones outside the cairn .....

Close-by second cairn, with less structure.

Walking from Black Tor towards the car park, along the wall nearest to the B3212. This has the structure of a corn ditch wall which, in this case, would allow deer to escape from the left (shallow slope) but not the other way (steep wall). The enclosed fields are to the left .....

Inside the enclosing corn ditch wall a stone row is almost embedded in the wall. Described by J. Butler (1994), Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities III, 45.14 Black Tor double stone row and cairns, pages 47-50.

Walk details

MAP: Red = GPS satellite track of the walk.

This walk was reached very easily, by driving out of Dousland towards Princetown, going over the cattle grid at Peek's Hill, over the crest of the hill and parking down on the left side of the road where there are two car parks: see the yellow cross by the P symbol on the map.

Statistics
Distance - 5.7 km / 3.54 miles