Day 5, Saturday: Driving around Dartmoor

Our journey today was to Haytor on the south east area of Dartmoor, a vast barren plain well known for Dartmoor ponies and very popular with walkers.

I’ve done hundreds of crosswords in my life and so often the clue is ‘hill’ and the three letter answer is ‘tor’. Well today I finally saw a tor- Haytor! Locally, a tor is more particularly defined as a hill with huge rocks on the top, granite outcrops, that have been exposed by erosion over the years.

The rock here is granite which was mined and transported to London for building, the most famous construction using Dartmoor granite being London Bridge.

A ‘railway’ was built to get the granite down the hill to a barge on a canal that ferried it to Teignmouth (Tinmuth) where it was then loaded onto ships and carried to London. The railway was made of stone ruts carved for the wheels of horse drawn carts and these are the remnants you can see today.

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Another tourist attraction is the Dartmoor ponies, and there were lots to be seen as we drove to different vantage points on the moor.

Sadly, many people who can no longer look after their horses bring them to Dartmoor and leave them here in the wild. Every year the ‘ferals’ are rounded up and culled to prevent interbreeding and retain the pure strain of Dartmoor ponies.

Dilemna on the Moor – The truth about slaughtering Dartmoor ponies

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about the church struck by lightning ⚡️, the hairy hand and other tall tales and true of Dartmoor, so stay tuned 🙂