Trans-Dartmoor Packhorse Track: Part 3 – Goad’s Stone Pool to Princetown

Part of Hemery’s ‘Walking Dartmoor’s Ancient Tracks: A guide to 28 routes’, Track 9 – Chagford to Plymouth Route

This section is from Goad’s Stone Pool to Princetown. Approx 3 miles.

Part 2 – Trans-Dartmoor Packhorse Track: Part 2 – Yelverton to Dousland to Goad’s Stone Pool

Part 4 – Trans-Dartmoor Packhorse Track: Part 4 – Princetown to Two Bridges

Background

This blog sees me continuing my explorations along the old packhorse route between Plymouth and Chagford. Having previously crossed Roborough Down and ascended through Dousland, from here on most of this walk is over the high open moor, albeit close to the road. Moorland is unforgiving isn’t it? From precipitation there is no shelter; from high winds there is no shelter; even from hot relentless sun, there is no shelter. All can be difficult, draining and dangerous as can be seen in the final ‘interesting thing’ that I discuss along this walk.

In Part 2 (Yelverton to Goad’s Stone Pool) the possibility of this perennial puddle being a ‘sacred pool’ was discussed (Greeves, 2019). Thinking about the packhorse traffic I had thought how useful it was as a watering hole for animals along this barren stretch. Whilst there is water in the valleys, this trackway keeps to loftier terrain and avoids boggy ground, and in so doing also avoids places where animals can drink. In Part two I also mentioned that this route, which generally follows the modern B3212, lies roughly in the same place as a far earlier route noted in a late Saxon boundary charter.

I want to return to this charter and discuss its significance in more depth. The clause is from a Meavy record from 1031 AD which states ‘boc sætena hig weg‘ which is translated as ‘the people of Buckland’s high way (Finberg, 1970, in Langlands 2019, p45). Langlands, in discussing the various types of Saxon names for their routeways suggests that the term ‘Weg’ seems to be reserved for those on steeper gradients, and therefore ones favouring people on foot or using pack animals. This certainly accords with the terrain of our road. But all this his raises the obvious question, what do the people of Buckland Monachorum need with their own named highway, 8-10 km east of their village and up on the high moorland of Dartmoor?

The answer may be transhumance. I see you pulling a confused face. What the holy heck is transhumance? I don’t know about you but to me it sounds like some kind of shamenistic shape-shifting practice. Whilst it has nothing to do with any druidic drug-induced transmutation from human into animal form, it does relate to human-animal movement and is defined as:

‘Transhumance: the action or practice of moving livestock from one grazing ground to another in a seasonal cycle, typically to lowlands in winter and highlands in summer.’

Oxford Languages

In Britain we still have elements of this approach in modern agriculture but it was much more widely practiced in the past. For Dartmoor, academics like Fox (2012) have used various documentary sources to try and unpick the relationship between lowland estates and their upland Dartmoor pastures. For example, Cockington is recorded as having pasture on the moor at Dewdon, and Paignton as having pasture at a place once named as ‘Peadington‘ (in Langlands, 2019). Similarly, Buckland Monachorum is thought to have made use of grazing land during the early middle ages, high on the moor in this vicinity. Such documentary evidence is supported by scientific approaches, with Strontium isotopes being used in a case study from Northern England showing the teeth of prehistoric cattle demonstrated that they were indeed pastured in different locations (in Oosthuizen, 2011).

This map (above) of charter lands granted to Buckland Abbey at its founding in the 13th C shows how this tract of land around the Meavy river belonged to the abbey in the late medieval (from Gill, 1968). Any Dartmoor aficionado knows well how this relationship is represented by the words ‘boc lond’ carved on Siward’s Cross (Nun’s Cross) at the farthest extent of their realm. However, it may well be that this monastic arrangement was not a new one but actually represents the cementing of an existing Saxon relationship with this moorland territory in the Late Saxon era, as evidenced by the mention of their Hig Weg. By extension, it is therefore reasonable to suggest that the Saxon possessions may themselves represent an even deeper landscape organisation with roots further into the prehistoric transhumance past?

The Saxon scholar Oosthuizen thinks so. She states that:

“the combination of territoriality and transhumance suggests that rights to grazing had been defined from at least 4000 BC [and that] a group which sends its cattle and/or sheep for months at a time to distant pastures, possibly inter-commoned , conceivably detached from its own territory, perhaps even across the territories of others, must be sure of its rights to do so”

Ooustuizen, 2011

When I sat down to write this blog, I anticipated a post emphasising packhorse travel. Instead I have been taken down a different road; a road about the potential embryonic development of this highway with a prehistory linked to transhumance, adding another enriching layer to my growing understandings of the Dartmoor landscape. Returning to Goad’s Stone Pool where we started, I want to take another look at the work of Greeves (2019). Whilst suggesting pools such as this might have had sacred significance, he also stresses their potential prehistoric origin and utility linked to seasonal cattle movements. Well I never; you just don’t know where a walk is going to lead you

7 Interesting Things

1. The Walkhampton Common Reave

I feel like a numpty admitting this, but I have been reading about Dartmoor in books for ages but my understanding of what a reave is is sketchy. Unforgivable. There is nothing like having to write about something for ‘shaking out’ your lack of knowledge!

It was in the Bronze Age (c.2000-700 BC) that the territorial dividing up of landscape occurred in Britain for the first time. Earthen and stone banks were constructed, some many kilometres long, which still persist today (English Heritage). What environmental and social changes made this desirable and/or necessary? Was it: changes in agricultural practices?; the formalising of informal territories?; population pressure leading to a need to stake claim?

There seem to be two types of reaves – territorial and agricultural (Gerrard, 1997). On southern Dartmoor, where reaves were favoured, six territorial reaves divide the landscape into units based around river systems. Our Walkhampton reave is a territorial watershed reave (running roughly on a ridge drainage divide) dividing Walkham country from Meavy Country.

The Walkhampton Common Reave totals 3.2 km in length but what is most noteworthy when viewing it on a map is how straight most of it is. There is a section which runs roughly parallel to the road that does not deviate from the straight for for 2.3 kilometers (see map above). Surely such precision would require knowledge of surveying techniques? We think of the Romans as bringing surveying skills to these lands. However, the surveying equipment used by Romans – the groma – is thought to have developed 6000 years ago in Mesopotamia or Greece (Wikipedia).

Bronze Age peoples of the south west were known to have international trading connections to the Mediterranean so it is not unreasonable to think that they were able to rig up the relatively simple groma and know how to use it. In fact, in Kent, there has been a possible Bronze Age find of a groma footing so it appears that such technology was likely known on our shores (Kent CC). I am speculating, but if not a groma, how else would you achieve a 2.3 km straight line through undulating upland?

2. Hut Circle Settlement

Hut circles are ten a penny of Dartmoor. They are everywhere. Over 5000 are recorded and there will be others yet to be identified (Gerrard, 1997). Let’s not even think about how many have been destroyed by humanity’s penchant for building walls. There are numerous prehistoric settlements of hut circles scattered within 500 m of the main road I have been walking. I chose to explore a group of about 40 on a hillslope south of Leeden Tor, not because they are a particularly fine example but because these were closest to the route I am following.

Rarely very large, what struck me about most of these roundhouses was how ungenerous they are. One theory about smaller hut circles is that these may represent homes only seasonally occupied by people summer grazing their stock on the moor (Price, 1993). This provides a nice potential link to the notion of transhumance being discussed in the opening. Scrambling about through the heather to find these half hidden huts I was also interested in their location on sloping ground which on initial inspection didn’t look ideal. However, given the fact that valley bottoms are waterlogged and flatter hilltops are also also prone to sogginess I decided on reflection that a well-drained hillside was probably a very good idea.

3. Black Tor Logan Stone

The Black Tor logan stone is one of numerous such stones on Dartmoor. I enjoy etymology of words and the name ‘logan’ struck me as odd. To me it feels Irish or Scottish. Definitely Gaelic. Its origin is not well-understood but Quinion is of the opinion that …

“it comes from the English dialect log that means to rock (in some parts of Britain the stones are called logging stones). We can’t go further with confidence, but the word may have a link with Danish logre, to wag the tail, which could suggest a Norse origin.”

Quinion (undated)

Bray (1836) had worked this out years ago by listening to the people around her. She wrote:

4. Hart Tor Rifle Range

Just like the Walkhampton Reave, running a straight course from the road across to Hart Tor is a rifle range. Its presence in the landscape is literally measured out by seven short granite posts marked on top with a number representing the distance in yards from the target – two earth work mounds on the side of Hart Tor. The thing I like about this particular military feature is how it connects the earliest known involvement of the military on Dartmoor to Dartmoor Prison where this relationship started.

Opening in 1809 and housing over 5,000 men , the prisoners were guarded by a battalion of about 600 soldiers. It is thought that part of their duties included the maintenance of their military musketry skills at the Hart Tor Range (Unknown, Undated).

Throughout much of the 19th C the garrison presence around Plymouth considerably enlarged in response to national security threats and the need to protect the important naval docks. It is due to this build up of troops in the area that led to the sustained use of Dartmoor as a training area; a relationship that continues to this day.

5. The Devil’s Elbow

I have found myself writing in my other blog posts about turnpike roads; how new roads were built, how others declined, and what modifications were made. But of course, road improvement is an ongoing process. The Devil’s Elbow is an example. On approaching Princetown the road dips into a substantial tin openwork over a crossing that was called the Devil’s Bridge. Today the road through this gert takes a fairly straight course but before 1964, when the roadworks were undertaken, this road presented the driver with a nasty chicane. Couple this S-bend with the acceleration of motoring into a depression and you have a recipe for disaster. It was a notorious accident blackspot, possibly aided and abetted by the previous partiality for drink driving. Of course, such irresponsible behaviour would have no connection with the former Devil’s Elbow pub a few hundred yards up the road.

These images (above) contrast the layout of the road before and after it was straightened, using rubble from the recently demolished Foggintor School (Sandles, 2018). The path of the old road can still be observed ‘in the field’, primarily on the right of the road if you are heading towards Princetown with the old tarmac surface still evident. More photographs can be found in the Dartmoor Trust archive.

6. Meavy Head

There is a romance to the headwaters of a river; the place where it is born. The romance is normally at odds with the reality, with the headwaters of a Dartmoor stream normally being a featureless soggy bottom. Most Darmoor headwaters lie in the remote plateaux areas and therefore require effort to get to. But Meavy Head is right next to the Yelverton- Princetown road, making it by far the most accessible.

So what does Meavy mean? According to Mills (1995) Mæwi is probably a Celtic name meaning ‘lively stream’. Hemery (1983, p105) lists the mentions of Meavy in historical records, including its first, from 1031 AD, showing a grant of land called ‘Mawi’. He dislikes the use of the name Meavy – “even the very name of the river has been molested by modern man“. In ‘High Dartmoor’ he resolutely refuses to use the modern name, steadfastly calling it Mewy instead. I love his indignation.

7. The Soldier’s Pond

The best portrayal of the story behind the Soldier’s Pond that I have found is that given by Sandles (2016) in which he uses the original newspaper report to shed light on events. Sandles opens his account by setting the all important context:

“In 1853 Dartmoor was in the grip of a harsh winter, the snow lay thick with drifts several feet deep. At this time Dartmoor prison was used to house convicts who were guarded by a company of the 7th Regiment of Royal Fusiliers. The deep snows had cut off Princetown and the ice had frozen the prison leat which meant rations and water were in short supply.“

Sandles, 2016

The story starts with privates George Driver (age 27) and Patrick Carlin (age 23) who were discharged from the Royal Military Hospital at Devonport on the 12th February. Taken as far as Roborough they met with Corporal Joseph Penton (20) who had battled down from Princetown in the snow to meet them.

Heading to Princetown they reached the Dousland Barn Inn where the landlord tried to talk them out of continuing the journey but Penton it seems was determined to fulfil his orders. Discarded kit and footprints were used to forensically decipher what happened to the men. In several places drifts impeded their progress but they got as far as the Devil’s Bridge just outside Princetown which they found impassable.

Driver and Carlin decided to return to Dousland but they died at a spot called Double Waters near Peek Hill. Penton persisted, perhaps knowing he was so close to Princetown and shelter. He made it up and out from the gert through which the Devil’s Elbow road ran but not much further. His body was found in the small banked hollow close to the road which is now known as the Soldier’s Pond. He was only 200m from the safety of the Duchy Hotel.

A memorial to the three men can be found in the church at Princetown.

The Route

The route for his walk is very straightforward. If you want to stick religiously to the pack horse track then all you need to do it follow the road to Princetown, shown on the map as a solid line (below).

For interest I took a more wandering path, deviating from the road. The map shows my route (dashed line) and the locations of the ‘interesting things’ along the way.

References

Archiuk. Old Maps. https://www.archiuk.com/archi/archi_maps.htm

Bray, A.E. (1836). (1 January 1836). “A Description of the Part of Devonshire Bordering on the Tamar and the Tavy: Its Natural History, Manners, Customs, Superstitions, Scenery, Antiquities, Biography of Eminent Persons, &c. &c. in a Series of Letters to Robert Southey, Esq“. John Murray: London, via Google Books.

Devon County Council Environment Viewer. https://maptest.devon.gov.uk/portaldvl/apps/webappviewer/

Fox, H.S.A. (2012) Dartmoor’s Alluring Uplands: Transhumance and Pastoral Management in the Middle Ages. Exeter University Press: Exeter.

Gerrard, S. (1997). Dartmoor. B.T. Batsford/English Heritage: London.

Gill, C. (1968). Buckland Abbey. Underhill: Plymouth

Greeves, T. A. P. (2019). Dartmoor’s Sacred Pools. Design in the Prehistoric Landscape, 21, Goad’s Stone Pool (Article in Serial). 

Hemery (1983). High Dartmoor, Robert Hale: London.

Hemery, E. (1986). Walking Dartmoor’s Ancient Tracks: A Guide to 28 Routes. Robert Hale: London.

Heritage Gateway. The Walkhampton Common Reave. www.heritagegateway.org.uk

Historic England. A length of the Great Western Reave, a prehistoric settlement, three cairns and two field systems on Walkhampton Common. historicengland.org.uk

Kent County Council. Exploring Kent’s Past – Findspot. Bronze object? Foot of groma (Ro).

Langlands, A. (2019). The Ancieny Ways of Wessex: Travel and Communication in an Early Medieval Landscape. Windgather Press: Oxford.

Mills, A. D. (1995). A Dictionary of English Place-names. Oxford University Press: Oxford.

Oosthuizen, S., (2011). Archaeology, common rights and the origins of Anglo‐Saxon identity. Early Medieval Europe, 19 (2), pp.153-181.

Price, D.G. (1993). Dartmoor: the pattern of prehistoric settlement sites. The Geographical Journal. 159(3) pp261-280

Quinion, M. Logan stone. World Wide Words: Investigating the English language across the globe. worldwidewords.org

Sandles, T. (2016). Soldier’s Pond. Legendary Dartmoor. legendarydartmoor.co.uk

Sandles, T. (2018). Four Winds. Legendary Dartmoor. legendarydartmoor.co.uk

Unknown (Undated). The Armed Forces on Dartmoor: A Brief History. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/

Wikipedia. Groma (surveying). www.en/wikimedia.org