Post-War Princetown

Routes to my Roots Series

Exploring the Landscapes of my Ancestors

Princetown is an idiosyncratic village, defined by its high-altitude setting and its forbidding Georgian prison.  It is also the place where my mum grew up in the 1950s and 60s and where my grandad lived well into retirement. This blog draws on my mum Linda’s childhood memories. Using my format of ‘7 Interesting Things’ I am going to explore aspects of landscape and place to capture a sense of Princetown in those post-war decades of my mum’s youth.

Before getting into the ‘7 Interesting Things’, let’s start with a short overview of Princetown as a Dartmoor village …

Peculiar Princetown

There is an obvious reason why most people in Britain have tended not to live above 400m – the weather. Until anthropogenic climate change began to raise the mercury in thermometers, living this high above sea level meant long winters of cold and snow, with rain and fog seemingly for much of the rest of the year. Surprisingly, given that other parts of the nation have mountains, there are few villages in the whole of the realm loftier than Princetown. With Princetown’s highest buildings between 430 to 440m, only Wanlockhead in Scotland [466m] and the coal mining village of Flash in the Peak District [463m] are more altitudinous (BBC, 2019; Macclesfield Express, 2007). Even Trefil in Blaenau Gwent – the highest village in Wales – is only 409 metres above sea level (BBC, 2015).

Hand-in-hand with its rare topographic height, Princetown’s moorland setting also makes it remote; or at least it was remote before modern transportation evaporated the inconvenience of distance. A sense of remoteness would have been much more keenly felt by residents of Princetown 200 years ago, when it was a young place. It was this isolation that was one of the key arguments put forward to justify Princetown as a location to build a new prison to aid the nation’s penal problems (Kelly, 2015, pp113-147).

Whilst the village was not founded for its jail, it would almost certainly have floundered if Dartmoor Prison had not been established in its fledgling days. Back in 1785 land-entrepreneur Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt’s vision for Princetown was to implant a settlement in the remote Dartmoor ‘wasteland’ (Kelly, 2015, p116). Secretary to the Prince of Wales, Tyrwhitt had hoped, through enclosure and scientifically informed improvement, to turn this area of unproductive moor into profitable agricultural land.

The optimistic venture proved harder than envisaged, with huge initial labour costs proving prohibitive to achieving long-term agricultural success (Kelly, 2015, p121). If it had not been for the glut of prisoners from the Napoleonic and Anglo-American wars, ‘project Princetown’ would almost certainly have failed. As it was, the British rapidly found themselves severely short of jail space and so an opportunity to build a prison at Princetown was seized upon and lobbied for by Tyrwhitt. The Admiralty’s decision to set up a prisoner ‘depot’ in Princetown turned around the fate of the struggling moorland colony. The free prison workers tipped the labour cost balance, and enabled Tyrwhitt’s plan to be realised, albeit not as productively as the Georgian agricultural idealist had hoped.

Inter-woven with these agricultural and prison threads, Princetown’s story was also shaped by the communications revolution. Princetown became possible as a place partly due to a new turnpike road resulting from the Duke of Bedford’s Turnpike Act of 1772 (HER, 2024). This was a step-change in making high Dartmoor less cut-off and influential in Tyrwhitt’s plans to initiate a settlement at this now accessible central Dartmoor location. In turn, this improved road connection was then supplemented with a tramway which, over the course of the next century, gave way to railways, buses, motorbikes and cars.  This rapid transport revolution fed the economy by making the remote adolescent village increasingly viable as a place to live and visit. Dartmoor, and Princetown at the heart of it, became a tourist destination.

It was on these twin economies of incarceration and tourism that Princetown flourished; strange bedfellows, but a combination that seemed to work for many years. It was certainly a vibrant and lively village that my mum conjures when recounting the Princetown of her youth. In this blog I want to follow some of these themes – the prison, transport, the economy and the social side of Princetown – as I try to understand my mum’s childhood village in the post-war decades.

7 Interesting Things

1. The End of the Line – Goodbye to the Railway

Places evolve, not just through construction but also through redundancy, dereliction and demolition. On 5^th March 1956 Princetown experienced such a loss to its cultural landscape with the closure of the railway. Station Road still exists, as do the Station Master’s house and the ‘old’ and ‘new’ station cottages. But, gone are the other paraphernalia of the terminus – the station building, the goods shed, the engine shed, the carriage shed, railway stables, a crane and signal boxes. According to Helen Harris (1992, p174) the railway line was swiftly removed in 1957 and an OS map of 1965 shows the terminus area devoid of these railway trappings.

Opened in 1883 the Princetown Railway, for the most part, made use of the course of the former Plymouth and Dartmoor Railway. This had been opened in 1823 as a tramway but was unprofitable. In its early years the Princetown branch line’s main customer was the prison which is why it was affectionately known as ‘the convict express’ (James, 2002). Granite from local quarries was also carried. In its final decades, as well as being used by locals, tourists were attracted to the scenic line, but in insufficient numbers. Sadly, like the tramway, the Princetown Railway could not turn a profit and closed.

My mum has no strong memories of the railway as she was only eight when it closed. Neither can she recall the controversy surrounding the erection of the TV mast which went live in the same year – two big events in Princetown’s post war history. It is to the mast we turn next.

2. The Mast – a Contentious Pole

The BBC TV mast at North Hessary had an imposing impact, not just to Princetown’s scenery, but to that of wider Dartmoor and beyond. The mast can be seen from miles away. Originally designed to broadcast a television signal, for most of its life it has transmitted radio waves. Standing sentinel near the centre of the moor, this symbol of modernity, implanted within a nationally important landscape of Neolithic and Bronze Age remains, was rapidly accepted as a part of the Dartmoor vista. The anachronistic structure, far from jarring in this wild place, instead provides a sense of reassurance. Virtually wherever you are on the moor, its prominent frame, jewelled  with ruby lights, provides a sense of bearings. As long as there is visibility, it is a superb navigational aide.

Forgotten now, the mast provoked the first big test for the newly formed Dartmoor National Park, for in the same year the park was established (1951), the BBC informed the planning authority of its wish to build a 750 foot high aerial on North Hessary Tor (Kelly, 2015, p225). This provoked the Dartmoor Preservation Association (DPA), led by Sylvia Sayer, into a campaign against the ‘landscape slaughter’. In a newsletter they said ‘an outsize television mast would be a perpetual reminder of those aspects of modern life which most people come to the National Park to forget’ (Devon and Exeter Gazette, Friday January 4, 1952, p5).

In June 1952, the chair of the Dartmoor National Park Committee needed to give the casting vote when members were split over whether to allow the development. Guided by the County Director of Planning, who advised the mast would not be an intolerable disfigurement, and a consideration of the rights of the people of the south west to have access to high-quality television reception, the scheme was given the go ahead to test the site for suitability (Devon and Exeter Gazette, Friday June 20, 1952, p4).

Over the next year technical surveys and testing was undertaken, but debates continued as to alternative sites to one that despoiled Dartmoor (The Western Morning News, Thursday November 27, 1952, p4). In 1953 a government freeze on expenditure was lifted and the BBC were able to green light the mast project and so final approval was sought. In August 1953 representatives from the various Cornish authorities voted in favour of North Hessary but what of opinion more locally? Whilst the DPA continued to oppose on the basis of landscape amenity, a petition organised at Princetown, Post-bridge and other nearby villages was instigated to demonstrate backing of the mast. At a public meeting held at Lydford, a resolution was unanimously adopted from the Forest Ward of their ‘full and unqualified support’, with not one speech given in opposition (Herald Express, Saturday September 5^th, 1953). It was suggested at the meeting that chief opposition was coming from those who did not know the moor well and who were not ‘Dartmoor people’.

Finally, in early 1954, and following a Public Enquiry, the government eventually approved the mast with it going live in August 1956. Now 70 years old, few can remember a time before its skyline presence. I think it is fair to say that most regard it with affection rather than toleration. With frequent discussions of government needs to push through critical infrastructure projects (I have data centres, modular nuclear power and green energy in my thoughts), I want to end with a question. Would or should such a prominent critical infrastructure development get built in the heart of Dartmoor today? 

3. The Prison – Princetown’s Economic Raison d’être

HMP Dartmoor has not housed prisoners since 2024 due to high levels of radon gas. Information from the Ministry of Justice has critically appraised that the HM Prison and Probation Service failed to negotiate a good deal when it renewed the prison lease in 2022, despite knowing the radon issue. This has meant that it is committed to the lease until 2033 but has to spend £4 million per year on rent, rates and security for a prison it cannot use (UK Parliament, 2026). According to interviews with locals (Townsend, 2026) this is having a big impact on the village with local prison workers now having to travel long distances to other establishments, and B&Bs, who used to provide accommodation for visitors on prison business, seeing their trade dry up. 

Questions over the future of the prison are not new. Initially built for French and American prisoners of war, the first phase of its operative life only lasted from 1809 to 1816 when it was decommissioned. Redundant until 1850, minimal maintenance meant that the prison buildings became damp and rotting (Joy, 2002, p8-11). The loss of both free labour and its chief economic asset must have hit Princetown’s prosperity hard. As Kelly says:

‘Princetown was quickly falling into decay, once again looking like a failed experiment, only now it boasted the monstrous relic of the prison’(Kelly, 2015, p152)

Whilst discussions of Dartmoor improvement continued into the generation after Thomas Tyrwhitt, little of consequence was achieved until the prison re-opened (Kelly, ibid). This put Princetown’s economy on an upward trajectory bringing direct and indirect employment and services. Originally guarded by soldiers, these were replaced by the specialist role of Prison Officer and these officers were required to live in Princetown with their families. In 1960 230 of Princetown’s 337 houses were prison officers’ quarters, a statistic that demonstrates just how vital the prison was to the vibrancy and health of the village (Torbay Express and Echo 29 Nov 1960). However, the newspaper article which gave this statistic was titled ‘The Town That Waits’, alluding to an upcoming announcement from the House of Commons on the future of the prison.

Back in the early 1960s the Home Secretary had a choice between three options: should Dartmoor Prison be closed completely, should a new prison be gradually built by progressively demolishing the old buildings with the help of prison labour; or should the old prison be retained (Torbay Express and South Devon Echo – Wednesday 21 December 1960). At an inquiry, and echoing sentiments that had previously been heard over the mast, the prison was presented by some as being incongruous and ‘a blot on the landscape’ However, discussion included recognition that the loss of the prison would prove terminal for Princetown …

“It is difficult to imagine many people staying in Princetown in preference to places on the fringe of the Moor or at the seaside … No doubt there will always be some trade with passing motorists and day trips since the village is on a main road to the West, but it is wishful thinking to suppose that it could ever again become a living community if the prison is taken away ” (Mr. Shelley reported in Torbay Express and South Devon Echo – Friday 02 December 1960).

But no decision on the prison was made and by 1966, only four years before the Home Office lease with Duchy was due to expire, locals were expressing grave concern at the newly-formed Tavistock Rural Council. Their anger was justified. Apparently, a census taken in the village as to how many people would remain there if the prison were to close, demonstrated that only about 153 elderly residents, out of a total population of nearly 1000 had said they would stay (Torbay Express and South Devon Echo – Friday 15 April 1966).

Luckily for Princetown the prison did remain open, but other decisions about how staffing was managed began to chip away at Princetown’s economy. In 1960 nearly 70% of the village was prison officers’ housing, with a requirement for officers to live in Princetown unless they received permission from the Governor. However, increasingly officers were seeking this permission and this policy was officially ended in 1979. Facilitated by car ownership and the rise of the homeowning culture, from this date new officers were given the option of a housing grant rather than Princetown quarters (Paul Finegan, Curator of Dartmoor Prison Museum, pers com). By the 1980s many of the homes built for prison workers had been handed back to the Duchy (HER, 2016).

4. The Recreation Area – Play and Freedom

If you were to go back to the late 19^th century, Princetown was a place with two separate nuclei – the village and the prison. Over time the space between these has infilled, but my mum still describes Princetown in terms of ‘the village end’ and ‘the prison end’. As an outsider I had never conceived of Princetown as being anything other than one settlement with one identity, but this was not how she had experienced it. 

This legacy of ‘development around the prison’ and ‘development around the village’ left the space between the two ripe for a particular type of development – recreational facilities and civic buildings.

Historic maps charting change in this interstitial zone show that, in the 1840s only a slaughter house lay between village and prison; an understandable ostracization. In the late 19^th century, there was a cricket ground, a school, hotels (The Imperial, The Prince of Wales, Duchy House), a post office, a police station and the ‘prison end’ now featured the ‘Recreation Rooms’ (the ‘Officers Club’).

By the first decade of the 20^th century a cricket pavilion embellished the cricket ground (later also used for football), and there was a bowling green and tennis courts. The Town Hall and a library also seem to emerge around this time. Mum remembers playing by the ‘stream’ below the recreational field where she would catch newts in a jar – the stream being the defunct former prison foul-water effluent channel.

It was at this point on our walk that I asked her about growing up in proximity to the prison. I knew that her childhood had been punctuated by various prisoner escapes and I was interested to understand the repercussions of this on her sense of freedom and safety. Given modern concerns about child safety and the siting of facilities housing groups which society (rightly or wrongly) do not want to live near to, I wondered – did the Dartmoor prisoners act as bogeymen in her imagination, with fearful implications to how and where she played?  Apparently not. Mum does not remember any restrictions imposed by her parents or stirred up by her peers. Having said this she does recall the 1966 escape of Frank Mitchell, ‘The Mad Axeman’, with road blocks everywhere. Generally though, the prison seemed to have been a benign presence, perhaps because the prisoners were so visible and an everyday part of the community, frequently seen outside the incarcerating walls in working parties. My mum even recalls one prisoner with mechanical knowledge being asked to help mend her car.

I wanted to know more about prisoner escapes in this era. According to Joy (2002, p132), between 1^st January 1956 and 12 April 1969 a remarkable 32 prisoners escaped in 22 separate incidents. All but two of these men were recaptured, sometimes after just a few hours, but sometimes after several days on the run. The year 1964, when my mum turned 16, was particularly bad, with 17 men escaping in 12 incidents. Data for the decade 2012 to 2022 (Howard League for Penal Reform, Undated) showed there were only 14 escaped prisoners across the whole of the England and Wales prison sector. This leaves me pondering two things about how times have changed. Firstly, I can only imagine the media furore today if this many escapes were reported from just one prison in one year. The second is the impossibility of how relaxed parents of a sixteen-year-old girl would be today, in a village housing a prison from which 17 Category A prisoners escaped in one year.

5. Duchy Square – The Heart of the Village

Princetown is not as hale and hearty as it used to be. Few villages are. The exodus of prison workers from the village from the 1970s, described above, played a major part in the decline, but this was after my mum grew up and moved away. When my mum reminisces, her memories are of a vibrant village of sundry shops, cafes, pubs, and other businesses, and the people that ran them.  With apologies for the incorrect spelling of names, mum remembers Mr Davey the butcher, Florey and Peter Stephens who had the newsagents (Peter also had a part share in a garage with his brother Ivor), a grocer called Finch who had two premises which everyone called Bottom Finch’s (at the village end) and Top Finch’s (at the prison end) and a combined grocers and butchers called Bolt’s, owned, in my mum’s day, by Miss Bolt.

Unlike the NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training) problem for today’s youth, my mum, like most of her generation, found work easily on her doorstep. She got her first jobs as a pot washer in the large Lord’s café and in The Plume of Feathers pub. Later she worked as a a shop girl in ‘Top Finch’s’ and at Bolt’s. A newspaper report from 1960 captures a snapshot of Princetown’s comparatively healthy economy (Torbay Express and Echo, Tue 29 Nov 1960). Described are nine shops, three licensed hotels, and several cafes. With only a ‘trickle’ of winter visitors out of season, apparently the cafes closed, but summer was busier. Dartmoor ponies, the article says, were common in the village centre and a draw for tourists, but not for long. A cattle grid had been installed which was already causing a decline in pony numbers. Another was to be in place by the following summer, sealing the village off from moorland animals. The implication of the article was that this might impact on tourists wanting to visit.

Talk of ponies, tourists and an abundance of high-street businesses paints an untroubled picture, but not everyone felt that the place was flourishing. Brutally, a Mr. F. Westlake, at a meeting of Lydford Parish Council at the schoolroom in Princetown, branded it a ‘shocking disgrace’ and ‘the filthiest village in the county’, referring to the state of buildings that had been demolished or left to rot and fall down (Torbay Express and South Devon Echo, Tue 9 October 1962).

For those running businesses a far more serious threat to Princetown would have been persistently miring their thoughts; the future of the prison. This must have been a worrying time for businesses in the village, for without the prison, the economy would have suffered badly, primarily because of the loss of prison workers but also to a lesser degree, through the impact on tourism, which the prison undoubtedly attracted.

“the fact that there are cafés and coach tours in Princetown is not reason enough to keep the prison going.” Western Morning News – Thursday 12 January 1961

6. Albert Terrace – A Home

Mum lived in a house in Albert Terrace on the road towards Two Bridges. I don’t need to rely solely on my mum’s memories to recall her family home as I remember it to, from visiting my lovely grandad. The house was an Edwardian terrace wanting of central heating. Can you imagine, living in Princetown, with pre-global warming winters and no central heating? Grandad, like many, lived in his back room, heated by a coal fire. The front room remained cold and superfluous (except for when mum and her friend Heather were jiving to records on the Dansette record player!). The back room was cosy and cluttered with arm chairs, dining table, and abundant ornaments. Another thing my grandad managed perfectly well without was a fridge. Given the notorious Princetown weather of fog and blizzards, if there was anywhere in England one could imagine coping without a fridge, it was here.

In mum’s lifetime the big freeze of the winter of 1962/63 was particularly noteworthy. She remembers snow drifts white-wedged against the house to the upper story windows, with her memories according with reports of snow on Dartmoor up to 6m deep. The snow first swept in around 29^th December, but cold temperatures and additional snowfalls persisted for two months (Royal Meteorological Society, 2013). Whilst cold winters on Dartmoor were normal, this was an exceptionally severe episode.

The oldest temperature record in the world (dating back to 1659 and known as the Central England Temperature Series) confirms that only the winters of 1683–84 and 1739-40 were colder. Princetown was cut off for a fortnight, and soldiers were called in to clear the road. According to the Torbay Express and South Devon Echo (Monday 14 January 1963) much of the work fell to the Devonport-based 571 Field Squadron who, worked through the night, and built themselves an igloo in which they could periodically thaw out over a brazier. Aided by a daily ration of a tot of rum, nonetheless, conditions were so bad that they could spend only 10 minutes at a time on the bulldozer. The residents of Princetown must have been extremely thankful when finally, three lorry-loads of coal finally made it to the stricken village. It should also be acknowledged that it wasn’t just soldiers who came to the rescue. After a further heavy fall of snow on the 25^th January it was prisoners who worked all day to clear the streets (Western Morning News of Thur 26^th Jan, 1963).

Life at Albert Road wasn’t all snow and cold. My Grandad brought the sunshine. He was a bit of a prankster. Mum recall’s several of his japes. Once he pretended he was late for work so she would have to deal with a mouse trapped in his home-made mousetrap – a pudding bowl under which was a cheesy lure, the bowl propped up by an easily dislodged matchstick. Fearfully, mum slid a shovel under the bowl. She could feel the body of the little creature rolling about as she transferred it to the toilet where she was under instruction to throw it in the loo and flush it away. Upset, she scrunched up her eyes and blindly let the rodent fall. When she finally peeked what she saw was a small potato bobbing in the porcelain. Other jokes he played included saving all his yellow plastic Jiff lemons and then, one night, tying them to the branches of his neighbour’s tree, so that they awoke to a faux Mediterranean courtyard.

As a granite polisher at Merrivale Quarry he had access to stone working tools. One day he decided to make a granite sculpture by setting a fake sword through a block of granite and positioning it in his front garden. He painted the metal sword and tipped it with red for blood, even glueing a thread to the end on which he had contrived a drop of dangling blood. This was a notable garden ornament which attracted compliments but also some unwanted attention. One night my grandad was awoken by a man with mental health problems who had walked to Princetown from Plymouth to pull the sword from the stone as be believed himself to be, if my memory serves me correctly, a confused mash-up of Jesus and King Arthur.

7. The Plume of Feathers – and other Socialising

My mum shared many memories but my overriding sense from her was that the village was a very social place and sounded full of carefree joy. As a youngster she would go with her mum to the Prison Officers Ladies’ Club where they would have whist and beetle drives. More multi-generational fun was had in the town hall where she would go with the family for silly games such as the one that involved passing balloons between the knees and money-raising raffles. The Town Hall also hosted a cinema night. Here to, bands played to jiving teenagers.  Mum recalls one ensemble called The Black Shadows. More dancing was to be found in the upper room of the Prince of Wales pub who had installed a juke box in their upper room.

For my grandad and grandma, the most important place in their social lives was their local – the Plume of Feathers. Owned at the time by Jib and Rose Crocker, the relationship was warm and intwined. Jib and Rose, as well as having the pub, also owned my Grandad’s house which they later sold to him for a very kind price. My grandad was a pub fixture, hanging out with his mates Twin Cribbett the coalman, and Ollie Worth. Jib and Rose also owned the coal-round which Twin took over when the Crockers retired. It wasn’t just my mum who worked here, as a pot-washer. My grandma also worked in the pub, not behind the bar, but with the food. Her colleagues and friends were Mabel Cribbett (Twin’s wife) and Jean Hodgson, a prison officer’s wife. Mum recalls the pub kitchen as having a huge farmhouse table in the centre and Rose Crocker making all her own clotted cream.

The Plume of Feathers is one of Princetown’s most noteworthy buildings as it is thought to the oldest building in the village. In 1785 Thomas Tyrwhitt began the building of Tor Royal. Between 1786 and 1795 he had his workforce upgrade the track through, what became Princetown. The other priority was the construction of an inn, then called ‘The Prince’s  Arms’ (Hemery, 1983, p382). The need to prioritise the building of an inn is easily understood. Tyrwhitt’s improvement ambitions required workers to build his vision and others to bring trade to the fledgling village. These men needed accommodation, food, and drink; as did their horses.  They were also places where news, gossip, commercial deals, sexual acts and fists would have been traded. How long The Prince’s Arms went by that name is unclear but Hemery cites it in a ‘List of Inns of Lydford Parish’ published by the Licensed Victuallers Association in 1823.  Here the inn is listed as being in the hands of John Loveday of Tavistock, maltster and brewer, only by now it is called The Plume of Feathers. Loveday was still the proprietor in 1839 for the Tithe Apportionment records him as landlord of The Plume of Feathers ‘Inn with yard, coach-house and stables’.

Whilst the stables and coaching function of the inn had long ceased, the Plume was still a vital and vibrant part of village in the 50s and 60s. It was also a second home for my family. Today, every pub in the nation appears to be struggling, and the Plume has witnessed better business days. However, it was the first business in Princetown and, is now one of the ones last standing.

Final Reflections

Princetown’s inception story was as a place implanted high on Dartmoor to make its ‘wasteland’ productive. This over-ambitious plan led to a pivot to the incarceration business. Dartmoor Prison enabled Princetown to, not just persist, but to thrive. But it is the Princetown of the post-war decades which has been the focus of this blog – a Princetown of my mum’s youth.

In my pursuit of understanding what it was like for my mum growing up in this Dartmoor village, happiness, freedom, community, and opportunity stand out for me. On her doorstep, and all contained within the village, my mum had virtually everything she needed – friends, employment and places to go for a lively social life.

I was also struck by some discordant themes raised. My mum’s memories are those of a carefree girl but I found it fascinating that she lived in a prison community, but with no sense of fear. Prisoners were regularly seen in the community on working parties but also, worryingly, regularly escaped. I cannot imagine that sense of acceptance and ease with prison escapes today. However, it was their norm. Also discrepant was the untroubled and thriving sense of community my mum experienced, in contrast to the cloud that hung over the village for much of the 60s due to uncertainty over the future of the prison. I presume that for business owners, this was a fretful time? Railway closure, the arrival of the television mast, and cattle grids excluding ponies from Duchy Square, also marked shifts in the experience of Princetown residents and visitors at this time.

Whilst the spectre of prison closure may have worried Princetown adults, particularly those commercially invested, it has been creeping changes rather than catastrophic prison closure that has most done for the village. In common with most places, societal changes have led to a hollowing out of the local economy due to well-rehearsed and ubiquitous causes. Supermarketisation, online retail and social ‘interactions’ without the need to leave the house have all played their part. However, beyond this, Princetown has suffered more, due to the inevitable loss of prison workers who, from the 1970s, were no longer required to live in the village.

Princetown soldiers on. This year (2026), the prominent Duchy Hotel has re-opened as ‘Gather & Moor’; the Duchy’s venture offering ‘a welcoming space for visitors and locals to relax, eat, drink, shop and learn’. Tourism, leisure, hospitality, heritage and environment now provide most of the hope for bringing in the external pound. Like everywhere, times are tough, but I want to be optimistic about Princetown’s potential to make more of its uncommon history and special setting. It is a truly unusual and historically important place. And what of my mum? She still visits Princetown every week to meet with old friends and socialise in a village cafe.

Turn in into a Walk

• Starting in Duchy Square at the Plume of Feathers pub, follow the Plymouth Road out of Princetown. At the pair of lodges straddling the road, take the track on your right in a NW direction to the vicinity of the old railway terminus [1].
• Take a sharp right and follow the footpath which skirts the edge of what was the terminus.
• When you get to the road turn right then look out for a footpath to the left.
• The footpath merges onto a road for a short while but then reverts to a track which can be followed directly up hill to North Hessary Tor and the radio mast [2].
• Retrace your steps back downhill. Look out for a footpath to your left which takes you across a field to the church, then turn left onto Tavistock Road and continue as far as the Dartmoor Prison [3].

• Retrace your steps then turn left into Barracks Road (withe the derelict Prison Officer’s Club on the corner). Then turn right and head for the recreation ground [4). Here you will see the sports pavilion.
• Skirt the edge of the playing field and find the footpath in the pine trees below the football pitch. If you follow the path to your left for a short distance you emerge from the trees and get a nice view of the prison.

• Turn around and follow the footpath back until you emerge behind the primary school. Follow the path to the left, then turn right at Bellever Close and walk back onto the high street and Duchy Square [5].
• From Duchy Square, at the mini-roundabout, take a left where you will find Albert Terrace [6] on the right side of the road.
• Turn and head back to the mini-roundabout and back to the staring point at the Plume of Feathers [7].

References

Barber, C. 1995. Princetown of Yesteryear – Part II. Obelisk Publications.

BBC. 2015. ‘Highest village’ sign blunder in Bwlchgwyn, Wrexham. 23 Dec 2015. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-35166641

BBC. 2019. Where is Scotland’s highest village? 17 April 2019. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-47948518

Harris, H. 1992. The Industrial Archaeology of Dartmoor. Peninsula Press: Newton Abbot.

Hemery, E. 1983. High Dartmoor. Robert Hale: London.

Historic Environment Record (HER). 2016. Moor Crescent, Princetown. Ref No. MDV117268. Updated 7 Nov 2016. https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/heritage-gateway/results/record/c39bc47e-3b72-4a06-9863-681629e456a2/MDV117268

Historic Environment Record (HER).. 2024. Tavistock to Moretonhampstead road. Ref No. MDV16974. Updated 12 March 2024. https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/heritage-gateway/results/record/c39bc47e-3b72-4a06-9863-681629e456a2/MDV16974

Howard League for Penal Reform. Undated. Escape from Wandsworth prison – Explaining the background to a serious security breach. https://howardleague.org/escape-from-wandsworth-prison/

James, T. 2002. About Princetown. Orchard Publications.

Joy, R. 2002. Dartmoor Prison: A Complete Illustrated History – Volume Two: The Convict Prison 1850-Present Day. Halsgrove: Tiverton.

Kelly, M. 2015. Quartz and Feldspar – Dartmoor: A British Landscape in Modern Times. Jonathan Cape: London.

Macclesfield Express. 2007.Highest village claims were no Flash in the pan. 15 August 2007. https://www.macclesfield-live.co.uk/news/local-news/highest-village-claims-were-no-2535570

Royal Meteorological Society. 2013. The Big Freeze of 1963: One of the coldest winters on record. Met Matters, 25 Jan 2013. https://www.rmets.org/metmatters/big-freeze-1963-one-coldest-winters-record

Townsend, J. 2026. Why Dartmoor Prison is once again at the centre of a cost, community and safety debate, The Moorlander, 8^th Jan 2026. https://www.themoorlander.co.uk/news/why-dartmoor-prison-is-once-again-at-the-centre-of-a-cost-community-and-safety-debate-6658940

UK Parliament. 2026. Ministry of Justice follow-up: Autumn 2025. 7 January 2026. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5901/cmselect/cmpubacc/1240/report.html